


DeMoNS

by Jevil_Joss



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, F/M, Parallel Universe, Some dark and disturbing content, Some religious content, Swearing, The Ships are Not the Main Point of the Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-01-24 01:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 52,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jevil_Joss/pseuds/Jevil_Joss
Summary: Team RWBY has been living their lives at Beacon. However, in a parallel universe, there are no Grimm, and no one has Auras or Semblances. They do, however, have magic, and part of that magic is summoning demons. Sometimes, however, those demons are actually people pulled from other dimensions.
Relationships: Raven Branwen/Roman Torchwick, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long
Comments: 40
Kudos: 52





	1. Raven Branwen

**Author's Note:**

> This work takes place in the multiverse of Stories of Remnants. It currently has no connection to that series, and neither is required to be read to read the other.  
Each chapter is named after the view-point character for that chapter.

_Swish, clang, clang, swish swish._

"Eyes on my sword," Raven told Weiss. Weiss nodded. The sun shone, and the walls of rose bushes climbed into the sky on either side. They stood in the garden plaza of the Royal Summer Home--the name a joke on Tai's part. Raven sparred with Weiss in the center of a clearing. Sitting on a nearby bench were the other three Royals, Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long. The people Raven fought to protect. 

Of course, Yang was her own daughter. After Raven had left, Tai had met up with the Queen, Summer Rose, and the two got married and had Ruby. Sometime after that, they found a crashed car and rescued baby Weiss. Unable to find out who her family was, they adopted her. Blake had been picked up by Raven upon her return, where she had taken an interest into the small girl living in a cardboard box by the side of the road. That's when she'd seen Tai for the first time in a decade and a half. 

With Summer. 

Raven spun her sword around, getting it under Weiss' rapier and hitting her wrist. With a flick of her own, Raven set the rapier flying, stabbing straight into the garden path. Raven put her sword up to Weiss' throat. "And dead," she said. "Please, Weiss. We love you. Don't die."

Weiss flinched. "Uh, sorry, Ms. Branwen."

"Just Raven is fine," Raven told her. She removed her sword from Weiss' throat, then began straightening the protective cover. Stepping forward, Lie Ren grabbed the sword and handed it back to Weiss. The four bodyguards that made up Team JNPR were still in training. They were, however, very skilled and very loyal. And friends with the Royals. 

Raven liked them, too.

"Alright, who wants to spar next?" Raven asked. She looked over the children. "Blake? Ruby? Yang? Any volunteers?"

"Why do I need to learn swordplay again?" Yang asked. 

"Because, if you ever are in a situation where one of us can't help, you need to be able to either make your attacker regret it, or book it," Raven replied. "Knowing your way around a sword is a good way to do both. Besides, if you ask Summer, it's..." Raven made quotey-marks with her spare hand. " 'Traditional'."

Everyone laughed. "Don't tell her I said that," Raven said. "Also, thanks for volunteering yourself, Yang."

"What? Mom, no--I didn't--"

Jaune Arc handed Yang her large sword. "Good luck," he said. "You are going to need it."

Raven had hunted demons for a large portion of her life. She could move as quick as a blur when necessary. She'd even matched Summer in a fight for thirty minutes straight.

Realistically, she didn't think they needed to learn swordplay. No one had ever tried assassinating the Royals--an action discouraged by Summer's holy status and power. And, due to large amounts of effort on Summer's and Raven's parts, no demons had been summoned in the past five years. No one even knew any offensive magic spells. The only magic anyone knew about was healing magic--and magical wart removers, the holy grail of magic. 

"So, you put your right foot--"

_Boom._

Raven turned. Coming from another part of the garden was a large plume of smoke. "Son of a bitch," she muttered. "Jaune, send two people to get the Royals to safety, and two people out scouting."

"Ren, Nora, get them to safety," Jaune commanded. "Pyrrha, with me."

Nice choice. Equal strength in both parties. And the two quicker ones on scouting duty. 

Raven began walking. "Wait!" Ruby cried. "We can help!"

Raven turned to her. "Uh, not for now. Especially against something we don't know about. It still is my job to protect you, and you don't know how to control your magic yet." Most demons needed more than conventional weaponry to take down. Magic was practically a necessity. Raven pulled the cover of her sword, lightning crackling along the blade. 

She really hoped a gas pipe blew or something. That it wasn't demons. Hell, even assassins she could handle fine. She could handle demons fine, too. But...

_Inside the Summer Home..._

If someone had summoned a demon inside the Summer Home, there were going to be problems. 


	2. Pyrrha Nikos

Pyrrha was scared. 

As she ran past tall walls of flowers, she quickly realized that she'd never been in life-or-death combat before. She'd sparred plenty, but could that really prepare her? She didn't know where Raven had went--and part of her hoped Raven solved the problem on her own. Pyrrha immediately rejected that thought; how could she ever protect the Queen's children if she'd never been in a real fight?

She stepped around a wall of roses and into a crater. The stone was cracked and shattered, and the ground was covered in a thick, viscous liquid. She shuddered, stepping over. "I don't think the summoner got very far."

Jaune leaned down next to a large black lump, then poked it with his sword. His sword sank into it, and he hastily pulled it out. "Whatever these are, I think they're dead," he said. 

"Ew," the lump said. Jaune jumped backwards as the lump stood up, slinging the goo off itself. "Just...ew."

"Um...hi?" Jaune said. The demon looked at him, the black goo falling off its face. It looked...like Yang. 

Duplicates. That made everything worse.

"Jaune?" the Demon asked. 

"Back off!" Jaune said, pointing his sword at the demon. "Just...stay right there!"

"Yang?" called a voice. Another form rose, wiping the goo off its face. "Ruby!" Yang cried. She rushed over to her sister, hugging her. 

"Where are we?" a third form asked, sitting up. 

"Do I even want to know what this stuff is?" a fourth one, sitting up right next to the third. 

"Did someone try summoning duplicates of the Royals?" Jaune asked Pyrrha. 

"It looks like," Pyrrha said. She bit her lip. This was bad. Very, very bad. "But it looks like they aren't hostile. So, just maybe, no one dies?"

"Jaune? Pyrrha?" demon Blake asked. She began trying to wipe the goo off herself. "Um...do you know where we are?"

"The Royal Summer Home?" Jaune replied. 

"The what?" Blake looked at him. 

"You are all probably very confused right now," Pyrrha said, loudly and calmly. "Now. If you just wait a few minutes, everything can be explained. Just have some patience."

"I'm never getting this stuff out of my hair," Yang commented. She slung some of it off. Then, she reached down and picked something up. "Hey, I found a book!" The cover fell off, and the pages all fell out and scattered across the ground. "Hey, I found what's left of a book!" Yang corrected herself. 

"Nice," Weiss said, standing up, trying to retain what little was left of her dignity. 

A fifth lump began shaking. 

"Another one?" Pyrrha burst out. Who would this one be?

A hand burst out of the goo, slamming into the ground. It was long and skinny, with shards of bone sticking out of it. Covering the wrist was a big metal gauntlet. 

"Hey, that's...my hand?" Yang said. She looked down at her own hands. "What?" 

Another hand burst forth. And finally, the demon rose up, black goo falling off its form. It was huge, standing well over twice Pyrrha's own size. She looked at it. Coming from its back were two hands, each ending in the specialized gauntlet. Then, she noticed its heads. Four heads. A different one for each of the royals. The eyes were a pale, glowing white, and the mouths were carved into dark smiles. Except for Ruby's head, which had its eyes closed. 

"Is that...the Amalgam?" Jaune asked. 

The Amalgam. Four demons, duplicates of the royals, shoved into one twisted body of hate and agony. Pyrrha crossed herself. This demon had been killed numerous times in the past, yet it never stayed dead. She couldn't take her eyes off it--the clothing, made up of scraps of all the royals' clothing. A massive red scythe was held in two of its arms. Coming from its back were dozens of black ribbons, and a massive stinger, with a silver rapier at the end. 

Pyrrha was scared. And she felt she was about to die.

"Hello, Pyrrha Nikos," the Amalgam said. Four voices, all out of sync. The Amalgam looked right at her. She pulled out her rifle and shot it. The bullets bounced off, flashes of multi-color light appearing around the Amalgam. The bullets bounced off the ground. The Amalgam looked at the bullets, then looked back at Pyrrha. 

Pyrrha's heart was beating loudly in her ears. She leapt aside as the ribbons shot forward, slashing open the ground. She fired at it as she ran around it, but again, her bullets didn't do anything. 

_I'm screwed_, she thought. She didn't think anything she did would take out this thing. She wasn't sure how she could even stall out the fight, waiting for Raven to arrive. She ducked beneath the stinger, and her eyes focused on the Amalgam, which was slowly turning around, following her movements. She gritted her teeth, leaping out of the way of the stinger.

_Never panic,_ Raven's words echoed in her in mind. _A fight where you panic is a fight you lost._

She fired, shooting the Amalgam some more, then rolled aside as the ribbons shot towards her again. 

_You want to prolong the fight, get in as many hits as possible. A demon's Aura will protect it from hits, but only if it has enough_ _left. _

She rushed forward, past the stinger that shot out at her. 

_One mistake could kill you. You need to never make mistakes._

The Amalgam swung its scythe. Pyrrha ducked, then put her rifle up one of its heads. Weiss' face looked at her in surprise. 

_You may eventually fight a demon that's a duplicate of someone you love._ _ If you love them, you will put a bullet in its head anyway, because it will stand in the way of you and a happy life._

Pyrrha fired. 

The reaction was immediate. The explosion destroyed the top part of the rifle, and Pyrrha was thrown backwards. A cloud of black smoke hung in the air. Then the Amalgam stepped forward, looking down at her. All four faces on it smiled, and one of the hands on its back grabbed Pyrrha's leg. It lifted her into the air and, with a flick of its wrist, threw her into a stone wall. Pain went down her side, her shoulder, and her leg. She bounced off the wall, and hit the ground, vision blurred and ears ringing. She vaguely thought she heard gunshots. Four screams of pain in discordant harmony. 

Then someone landed on top of her. She screamed out in pain, throwing the person off her with her good hand. Her eyes focused on the person. It was the demon Ruby. Ruby looked at Pyrrha, then at the Amalgam. 

"Hello, Ruuuuby," the Amalgam drawled, slowly stomping forward. 

Ruby stepped over Pyrrha. "I don't know what this thing is, but I'll protect you," she told Pyrrha. Pyrrha tried to rise, but the pain that flared in her leg and shoulder was too great. It looked as though she had several broken bones. 

That figured, right?

She laughed. Here she was, assigned to protect the royal family, and needing to be saved by the thing she was supposed to protect the family from. But if a demon could take out the Amalgam, wouldn't it be worth it?

"Thanks," she croaked to Ruby. She realized she was only seeing out of one eye. With her good arm, she reached over and touched her face. She was covered in blood. 

_I am so screwed._

The Amalgam raised a hand. The hand shot forward at Ruby. Ruby spun her scythe around to block an attack that never hit her. The severed demon's hand hit the ground, and immediately dispersed into a cloud of foul-smelling black smoke. Ruby looked at the Amalgam. The Amalgam looked at the hand, then looked over to its left. "Raaaven," it drawled. "Here to kill me agaaain?"

Raven Branwen stood up. She looked at the Amalgam, then looked over at Pyrrha and Ruby. There was...an emotion in her eyes. Something Pyrrha couldn't identify. Anger, at her friend being hurt? Disappointment, at Pyrrha's failure to stop the Amalgam? She looked at the Amalgam. "This time, I'd appreciate it if you would stay dead, bitch," she said coldly. The Amalgam lunged, moving fast. The ribbons shot towards Raven. Pyrrha never saw Raven draw her second sword, but the two swords moved in a blur, and the ribbons all fell to the ground around her. Raven stepped aside as the scythe was swung past her, then she stepped in, struck with her sword and stepped backwards. 

Blake's head hit the ground by Ruby and began smoking. With a disgusted noise, Ruby nudged it aside with her foot. 

The Amalgam swung the scythe. Raven blocked with her sword, then looked up at the stinger that shot towards her face. She slashed upwards, and the stinger landed behind her with a loud clatter, and began smoking. Raven slashed again, and a second head flung off. The Amalgam screeched in pain, backing away from Raven. Its second large hand shot towards Raven. Raven cut that one off as well, then rushed in and slashed off a third head. The only one left was the Ruby head. 

"Always so angry, Raaaven," the Amalgam moaned. "Please, smile. Learn to liiive a liiittle." 

Raven plunged her sword into the Amalgam's chest. "You'll reeeegreeet it when you diiiiiie..." were the Amalgam's last words. The whole thing dispersed into smoke. Raven sheathed her swords, then strode over to Pyrrha. "Are you okay?" she asked. 

Pyrrha nodded. Raven kneeled down, then picked Pyrrha up. "You need a doctor, then," Raven commented. She turned to the demons. "You four, follow me. You are in dire need of an explanation, and a shower."


	3. Red

"Comfortable?" Raven Branwen asked. Ruby had never met her before. The woman in red and black sitting in front of her, sipping tea, was an enigma. Ruby nodded. 

"You're tea's going to get cold," Raven pointed out. 

No one touched their tea. Ruby looked at her team mates--Yang was sitting on her chair with her arms crossed, comfortable and apparently mad about it, she was glaring passionately at her mother. Stepmother? The exact term eluded Ruby. Weiss was holding her tea, but not drinking it. Blake was pacing behind the couch the rest of her team sat on. 

"What is going on?" Yang demanded. 

Raven sighed. "A lot of complicated bullshit."

"You've been gone for years," Yang snapped. "Now, all of a sudden, I see you again; then I see you again, shortly after, sitting in a giant castle? What the hell?"

"Yang," Ruby said quietly. She didn't like seeing her sister angry. 

Raven looked from Ruby to Yang, then back again. "Stretch out your hand," she told Yang. 

"Excuse me?" Yang raised an eyebrow. 

"Yang," Ruby said, more firmly this time. As Yang looked at her, Ruby put a comforting hand on Yang's shoulder. "It's fine. She's trying to help us." With a sigh, Yang stretched out her hand. 

Raven stabbed a dinner fork into it. 

Yang snatched her hand back. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH--" She stopped. Ruby watched as black smoke crept out of the wound. Yang pulled out the knife. A cloud of smoke spewed out of the wound and dispersed, and the cut was gone. 

"Not even a scab," Weiss remarked. 

"Was that Grimm smoke?" Blake asked. 

Grimm. A chill ran down Ruby's spine. "Ms. Branwen..."

"Just Raven." The woman sipped her tea. 

"If you knew what was going to happen, why not just tell us?" Blake demanded. 

Raven shrugged. "I'm usually not that good with words."

"Are you serious?" Yang said, giving her mother a flat stare. 

"You are a long way from your home," Raven said. "And...its highly probable that you'll never go back." She sipped her tea. "I really do recommend drinking the tea while its hot."

"I don't care about the fucking tea!" Yang shouted, rising. "I want to know exactly what is going on with you! Where--how--what was that thing?"

"Jaune called it the Amalgam?" Ruby said. 

"It's a demon," Raven explained. Ruby frowned. "Summoned from your world, actually. It doesn't always work properly."

"Nothing like...that exists in our world," Ruby said. "And what do you mean, 'your' world?"

"Two worlds," Raven said. She lifted up a tea saucer. "Ours, the one you're in now, is up here, on top. Yours, is down at the bottom. Each one has its own history, and its own creatures. A long time ago, in our world, there lived a woman who found out how to use magic to pull shadows from your world into ours. Demons. Sometimes, it worked like it did for you--pulling in four unwitting people into our world. Other times, it works..." Raven trailed off. She set the saucer down. "The Amalgam was probably created when instead of creating four separate bodies, only one was created."

"But we aren't demons!" Yang burst out. "We're normal humans!"

"And whatever Blake is," Raven commented. "The cat ears? They look nice." Blake blushed furiously. Ruby snickered. "In any case," Raven continued, "you're not in your world. The spell that pulled you here created duplicate bodies for you four. Demon bodies. You are currently a lot stronger and faster than you're used to being. And as you just saw, you heal a lot faster."

"But...the Grimm smoke?" Ruby asked. 

"I have no effing clue," Raven replied. "What's a Grimm?"

"Do you...not have Grimm here?" Ruby asked. 

"I've...heard a few things mentioned by some demons I've fought," Raven said vaguely. Ruby was about to press her for more details, but Raven quickly added, "I've heard a few of them mention the Grimm creatures. But no, we don't have those here." She looked around at all of them. "You're probably tired. And we need to find a place for you to spend your nights." She rubbed her head. "Normally, demons try to kill me, so I guess this is a nice change of pace, but still. Also, now that the exciting stuff is over, you two probably ought to leave now."

"What?" Ruby asked. She looked at Raven, confused.

Raven looked around at all four of them. "Really? Not one of you noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Ruby asked. 

Raven held up her teacup. Then, she dumped it behind her chair, to the sound of Ruby's own voice crying out in shock. "I noticed when you came in," Raven said. "If no one else did."

Ruby watched as hers and Weiss' heads peeked above the back of the couch. "That's what you meant by duplicates."

"Anyway, Ruby?" 

"Yes?" both Rubys said at the same time. 

Raven blinked. "I was talking...um...okay. Demon Ruby, you and your team need new names."

"New names?" Ruby asked. 

Raven pointed at her. "You're Red now."

"I am?" Red asked. 

"To avoid confusion, we can just refer to each of you by the color of your clothes. You are Red, you are White, you are Black, and you are..." She trailed off, looking at Yang. 

"I am not calling myself Dirt-Brown," Yang stated. 

"...Yellow." Raven finally decided upon. "But seriously, human Ruby, you and Weiss need to go."

"What is going on?" Ruby asked. "There was an explosion, and I know Pyrrha got hurt, and-and--"

Raven thumped her upside the head. "Get a grip," she told Ruby. "Pyrrha is fine. I mean, she got hurt, but she's going to be fine. And as for these four--" Raven bit her lip. "I guess I oughta call your mom." She frowned. "This...this is not going to go well." A buzzing came from her pocket. She sighed, pulling out her phone. "And shit, that's her."

"Summer?" Yang asked. 

"Yeah." Raven gave Yang a curious look, then answered the phone. "Yeah. Yeah, everything's fine. Yes, I handled it. For the love of--Summer, everything's fine. Summer, slow down and give me a chance to talk." She looked at Red. "I'll send Tai in to help you."

Red nodded. _Mom's alive here? _She had only a few memories of Summer. Happily munching on a cookie in her lap. Sitting in the kitchen, with her dramatically reenacting a story. 

Standing in the doorway, watching the white cloak blow in the breeze as Summer walked down the road. 

"Hello? Earth to Red?" Red blinked, looking at Ruby, who was perched on the arm of the chair right next to her. 

"What's Earth?" Red asked. 

"Heh. You're joking, right?" Ruby said with a chuckle. 

"No. What's Earth?"

"The planet? Floating in space? Third from the sun? Two moons?"

"You have two moons here?" Red asked. "Cool."

"We only have one," Yellow said. "Half," she corrected herself. "It's...kinda broken."

"What broke the moon?" Ruby asked. Yellow shrugged. 

"Well, what do we do now?" White asked. 

"I...have no idea," Red said. She leaned back into her chair. "But, uh, it looks like things are going to be getting interesting."

None of them mentioned the 'unable to return home' thing. Red felt like everyone was thinking about it.


	4. Taiyang Xiao Long

Taiyang Xiao Long sat at his desk, deep in thought. He wasn't that surprised when he didn't notice the door open. 

"Mr. Long, sir?" Jaune asked. 

"Just Tai," Taiyang replied. "What is it?"

"Umm...I think it would be better explained if you come look at it, sir."

The soft scratching of Tai's pen stopped. He gave Jaune a curious look. "Can I have a hint?"

"Umm...Raven asked you to come?"

Tai rose and stretched. He was now incredibly curious. Jaune wasn't the cryptic sort, and he was never at a loss for words. Something he didn't want to try explaining...

"Where is Raven?" Tai asked, striding out the door. 

Jaune followed at a brisk pace, keeping match with Tai's stride. "On the phone with the Queen, sir."

Raven had a...strenuous relationship with Summer. The two were at each other's throats more often than not. Of course, Raven being Tai's ex, and Summer being his current wife, he could hardly call it a surprise. But both of them cared deeply about the children, and kept their arguments to quiet tones. "Hmm. More hints, please?"

"Umm..." Jaune stepped ahead of Tai and opened the door for him. "They're in here."

"Oh-ho. 'They'." Tai winked at him. He opened the door. He saw Yang, standing up, Ruby and Weiss hanging off her outstretched arm. Off to the side, evidently deep in thought, Ruby sat on one of the couches, Weiss right next to her, watching Yang. Blake leaned casually against a wall. 

It took Tai almost a full minute to realize what was odd about the scene. He looked at Jaune. "Hint? Please?"

"They were summoned in the garden," Jaune explained. "And...the Amalgam, but Raven took care of it."

"Anyone hurt?" 

"Pyrrha's in the medical ward. Several broken bones...but they said she's going to be fine."

"Dad!" Ruby called out, swinging back and forth on Yang's arm. 

"Hello there, pumpkin," Tai said. "And hello to you, too."

Ruby grinned at him, still swinging. "Look! Yellow's so strong!"

"Yellow?" Tai asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Raven had the idea of naming them after their clothing," Jaune said. "To, uh, limit confusion? Cause there's now two of each of 'em?"

"Gotcha," Tai replied. "What exactly was Raven wanting me to do?"

"Get rooming for them, I think," Jaune said. 

"Kay. You go get some rest--you look exhausted. You said the Amalgam?" Which explained why Jaune looked so damn haggard. No one needed to see the Amalgam--it really was something else. 

Jaune nodded. 

"Go get some sleep." Tai turned over to the demons and his daughters as Jaune walked off. "Umm...did you guys want, like, a bedroom or something? I know this place has multiple guest suites."

"Actually, right now, I'm more hungry than anything else," Yellow said. "Do you have any food?"

"Not on me. I'll call the cooks, I guess." He looked outside, into the hallway. "Hmm...I actually don't see any of the servants...and I don't actually know where the kitchens are...Ruby, would you mind fetching some of the left over soup from last night?"

"Kay!" Ruby hopped off Yellow's arm, then walked out quickly. Weiss followed behind her, as she always did. 

Yellow spun her shoulder around. "Damn. I feel like they should have been heavier. Way heavier, if your Ruby eats as many cookies as our Ruby."

This provoked no reaction from...Tai stopped to think if it was Red or Black. He couldn't tell. "That's a tall order. I don't think anyone eats more cookies than our Ruby. But, if anyone could, it would be another Ruby." Tai stepped over and sat in a spare chair. A spair? "You four alright?"

"Yeah," Yellow said, flopping down beside Red and White. "I mean, I saw my own head landing not five feet from where I stood, severed by my mom, who left me when I was under a year old."

"Ouch," Tai said. "Well, if it helps, she is a good person. At least, here, she is."

"I'm not sure she's...a bad person, back home." Yellow paused. She looked sad. Tai had been away from his home many times. Forced to be away from the ones you loved, and the ones who loved you back. He felt sympathy for the four...well, not strangers, really. He knew all of them. Right? "Hey, cheer up. Things may seem...pretty nasty right now, but I'm sure everything is going to get better," he said motivationally. 

Yellow smiled. "Thanks, Dad."

He felt like telling her that he wasn't her actual father, but decided against it. "And here's the soup!" Ruby called. Weiss opened the door for her, and Ruby hefted a big pot onto the table. "Leftover soup from yesterday!"

Weiss set out some bowls and spoons. 

"Thank the gods, I'm starving," Yellow cried out. 

"Plural?" Tai asked. 

"Umm...yeah. Both of 'em." Yellow ladled herself some soup. "Hey, Ru--Red. You want some soup?"

"Hmm? No thanks."

"Thinking hard, are we?" Tai asked Red. 

"There's a lot to think about," Red replied. 

"And what are you thinking about?" Tai asked. 

Red thought for a second. "Hmm...what's Uncle Qrow like in this world?"

"Qrow? He's a good guy. Honest businessman. Raven's sister..."

"Businessman?" Red snorted. "Now that's hard to imagine."

Tai frowned. "What's he like in your world?"

"He's a Huntsman," Red answered without hesitation. 

"Huntsman?" Tai asked. He ladled soup into a bowl, then handed the bowl to White. She took it with a nod of thanks.

"Trained fighters and warriors," Red replied. "Help fight off the Grimm."

"What is a Grimm, exactly?" Tai asked. "I know they get brief mentions if read really old books, and Raven's mentioned them, once or twice."

"Big monsters," Red replied. 

"There's more to it than that," White snapped. "Not much is known about the many types of Grimm. Their bodies disappear after death, so the only stuff we know comes from observing living Grimm. And they happen to be very aggressive."

"That's putting it mildly," Blake said. "They're monsters. They hunt down humans, they're attracted to fear and hate and anger...normal weapons don't take them down. You need Dust."

"I hate sneezing as much as the next guy," Tai began, but Red cut him off. 

"Not that kind of dust. Freaky crystal stuff. Do not inhale it."

White pushed a button on the hilt of her sword. She pulled out a crystal. "This is Dust. Combined with bullets, or just laced into the weapon itself. And yes, don't inhale it. That would end badly for you."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tai said. "But since we can't get you any more, as it doesn't exist in this world, try to use it sparingly."

White considered that, then nodded. "Yeah, you're right about that."

"Um...I have a question..." Red leaned forward, chin in her arm. 

"Shoot," Tai told her. He took a bite of his own soup. 

"What...what's Summer like?"

Tai frowned. He looked at her. "You mean, like, for comparison?"

"When I was four, she left on a mission. Never came back." Red shrugged. "I don't really have many memories of her."

"Well...she likes baking."

"Of course."

"Heart of gold. Never really believes in herself, but inspires everyone around her. She deeply cares about her family and her country. She has lots of work to do, but always finds time for her family." Tai reached over and ruffled Ruby's hair. Ruby laughed. 

"So...what's the situation with you and Raven?" Yellow asked. "I mean, like, both her and Summer...same room?"

"Um..." 

"They're friends," Ruby interrupted. "They have their fair share of disagreements, like anyone. But they like each other."

'Like' was a strong word, in this case. "Raven left," Tai explained. "She knows this. It was her choice. She's not the sort to get mad at someone for her own choices. Besides, she didn't exactly make it sound like she was coming back." Tai remembered the night she left. He remembered the pain and hurt. He remembered Yang, not knowing what was going on, simply crying and crying for her mother. 

But that was in the past. It was useless to dwell on things in the past, wasn't it? He checked his watch. "And it is officially late. Want me to take you to your guest suite?"

"Sure," Red said, rising and stretching. "Uh, do you have anywhere I can put this?" She picked up her rifle from the couch. 

"There's a closet," Tai said. 

"I can't put Crescent Rose in a dusty old closet!" Red complained, hugging the gun tightly. 

"You named it?" Tai asked. 

"Yeah. Don't...don't you guys name your weapons?"

"Uh...no?"

"Rub--" White sighed. "Ugh. Red, you leave it in a locker. The closet will be fine."

"But...but..." Red made a frowny face. 

White put a hand on Red's shoulder. "It's fine."

Red sighed. "Uuuuugh. Fine."

Tai laughed. 


	5. Raven

Raven stood out on the balcony, looking at the stars. The moon Andrus hung in the sky, just ahead of its larger twin. 

Footsteps behind her. Raven didn't even turn around, but she knew it was Summer. "What is it?" Raven asked. 

"Four?" Summer asked. "Like, really, Raven? All four of our children?"

_Our? You're never here._ Raven sighed. "I fought the Amalgam again."

"How was it?"

"Same as always," Raven said gruffly. "In that thing, I see my every failure and mistake, molded into one creature of pure agony."

"You never look on the bright side, do you?" Summer asked, leaning against the balcony railing, her white cloak falling gently about her. She blew a strand of white-black hair away from her eye. Her hair, however, was the one force on Earth that wouldn't obey her, and simply fell back over her eye. 

"What bright side?" Raven said, a bitter laugh crawling out of her throat. "That...that thing doesn't die. It just keeps coming back."

"Well, if your failures never stop coming, you'll never stop learning from them," Summer said. 

Raven looked at her. "Well, these failures are actively trying to rip my face off twenty-four-seven."

"Oh, come on!" Summer burst out. "Be cheerful already, ya git."

Raven cracked a smile. "What did you come up here for?"

"I came to see if you were okay."

_Like you ever cared about that. _"I'm fine."

"You also happen to be a compulsive liar," Summer retorted. 

"This sentence is a lie," Raven said with a grin. 

Summer opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. "The hell?" She looked at Raven, confused. 

Raven laughed. She leaned against the railing. She felt happy. 

She stopped. "Summer!" she snarled. 

Summer stepped back, confused. "Wait. Oh my God, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"

The relaxed air around them suddenly dissipated. Raven glared at her. "I don't need your holier-than-thou magic bullshit inside my head, Summer." 

"Sorry, I--I wanted to cheer you up, the power--must have responded to that--I really am sorry--"

"Shut it," Raven snapped. She turned around to walk away, but Summer grabbed her hand. 

"Please, Raven, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Summer apologized.

Raven turned and glared at Summer. Then she sighed, looking away. She yanked her hand out of Summer's grip. "That...just...urgh!" 

"Raven, I'm sorry," Summer backed up. "I...I..."

"It's fine," Raven lied with a sigh. "Just...keep your relaxation-thing to yourself. I don't need that."

Summer nodded. 

"I'm going to bed," Raven told her. She turned around and stalked off. She stopped, turned around, and looked at Summer. Summer looked...depressed. "Thanks," Raven said. "For...trying to help." 

**10 years earlier...**

Raven smiled fondly at the small, black haired girl she'd found by the side of the road. Blake happily munched on her bowl of noodles. Raven stirred her own bowl, taking a bite. 

"Thank you," Blake said, mouth full of noodles.

"Eh, you looked like you could use some help," Raven said. "And I'm kinda lost, and since you look like you know your way around..."

Blake nodded. "I've found a lot of shortcuts," she said. 

"Great. What city is this?"

Blake looked at her. "You're joking."

"Nope. I have no idea where I am."

"How lost did you get?"

Raven laughed. "I'm looking for the town of Mistral. How close am I?"

"Umm...this is Vale."

"Vale?" Raven frowned. "Well, shit, I'm on the wrong side of the continent."

"You're...about as lost as you can get."

Raven sighed. "I'm in for a long walk."

"Can't you...y'know...take a train?"

Raven looked down at the small figure. "I...don't have enough money."

The eight-year old raised an eyebrow, then looked at the mostly-empty bowl of noodles in front of her.

"Yo, shopkeep!" a voice cried out. A woman in a silver cloak plopped herself on the bar next to Raven and Blake. The shopkeeper turned to the newcomer, who said, "I'll take my usual." The stranger thumbed at Raven, adding, "And put her stuff on my tab. I'll pay for her."

"What?" Blake said. 

Raven blinked. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," the stranger said. "I just like helping people, that's all." She smiled. "I'm Summer."

"The name's Raven," Raven replied. "And this lil' cutie said her name was Blake."

"Aw, she's adowable," Summer said, pinching Blake's cheeks. Blake gave her a look of endurant suffering. 

"Summer!" a voice called out. _Tai? _Raven looked at Tai as he came over. "You keep rushing ahead of me. How am I supposed to keep up?"

"Get fast?" Summer replied. "Also, I made a friend! Tai, this is Raven, Raven this is--"

"Taiyang Xiao Long," Raven interrupted. Summer blinked. "Oh! You two know each other?"

"Um...you could say that," Tai said. "How do I...oh, this is awkward."

"Who is she?" Summer asked. 

"Been a while, Tai," Raven said, taking a big bite of noodles. 

"Seven years," Tai replied. 

"I got the date when I saw the newspaper," Raven said. "You two...you're perfect for each other."

"Aw, shucks," Summer said. "You're making me blush."

"Ick," Blake said. 

"Who is...she?" Tai asked. "I mean, where have you been? We thought you died."

"Around," Raven replied. "And this adorable cutie..."

"Please stop."

"...I found her sleeping in a cardboard box by the side of the road, and decided I wanted to buy her some food."

"That...actually, I can buy that," Tai said. As the shopkeeper put Summer's bowl of food in front of her, Tai nodded at him. "The usual."

"So..." Summer elbowed Tai's stomach. "Who is she? Come on, don't leave me hanging."

"Summer, I told you about her," Tai said. 

"When? I'm pretty sure I'd remember that. Raven is a pretty uncommon name."

"She's Yang's mom," Tai said. 

Summer looked at Tai, then looked at Raven, then looked down at herself. "Awkward," she said in a sing-song voice. 


	6. Blake

Blake had woken early that morning, and went to the library. She liked books, and she liked reading. Whereas she had little skill or pleasure with a sword, she found she could sit and read for hours. Of course, Raven had noticed her leaving her room, and had stuck a bodyguard onto her. Lie Ren, this time. It wasn't that Blake disliked them--she disliked their following her all the time. She understood that that was kind of the point of bodyguards. But at least Ren stayed five foot away from her, didn't say anything, and was respectful in general. 

She felt like Raven sent Ren with her on purpose. 

She lowered her book, looking past the shelves as she heard voices. Ruby and Weiss? No. Red and White. Weiss didn't talk that much, and certainly not...like that. 

"Fairy tales? Not any history books that might help us or anything?" White said. Blake wasn't sure how anyone could speak and sound like disgust, but somehow, White managed. 

"I'm curious," Red replied. "I mean, don't tell me you're not."

"I mean, I am, but if we really are stuck here, then we kind of need to learn the history of this place," White said. 

"C'mon! Raven said the library was free for access, and if we do need to know anything, we can just ask Raven. She can be the exposition character!"

"Ugh." The two came into view. "Oh. Hey...Blake?"

"Morning," Blake called out. "White and Red?"

"Yes, that's...that's what our names are, apparently," Red said, rubbing her head. "Oh. Raven mentioned you might be here, so...I was wondering...do you know of any good books on fairy tales?"

"Several," Blake said, putting her book down. "What exactly are you looking for? Like, books in the old fairy tale style, or in a more modern version?"

"I'm a fan of the old style," Red replied. 

Blake walked over to a nearby shelf. "Were you looking for anything, White?"

"History books."

"Ah. What else?" Blake gave White a contemplative look before returning to the shelf. She looked almost exactly like Weiss--Weiss didn't have a scar over one eye. Yet...her personality was different. Obviously, she'd been through different hardships. So of course her mind would have been sculpted around those events. Right?

"This one is one of my personal favorites," Blake said, handing the book to Red. "It's a small collection of fairy tales. Hmm...this one is big, but its in a more modern style of writing. And this one...Ruby likes this one." Blake handed that one to Red as well. Would Red like it just because Ruby liked it? Blake didn't think that was how it worked, but figured Red wouldn't be too different. She started moving along the shelf. "Hmm...what about..." She pulled another one off and handed it to her. "This one's got a nice collection." She looked at Red's three books, then started walking down the aisle. "Let's see...history books are down here..." She stopped, looking at the shelf, then pulled off six books in one big stack. "Ah! Here we go!" She turned as White picked up the stack out of her arms. 

"This is lighter than expected," White commented. 

"That's because you have super strength," Blake replied. "In my opinion, it was exactly as heavy as expected. But that's a big collection of history books I think you'll enjoy."

"Thank you," White said. 

"Since you guys don't have a library card, you'll have to read them in the library," Blake told her. 

"Oh. Right." White shifted the stack of books in her arms, getting comfortable. "Do you know of a good spot to sit and read?"

"I was just at one," Blake said. "C'mon, it's a big enough table for three."

"What were you reading?" Red asked. She sounded curious. 

"A fantasy book," Blake replied. "Its got wizards and knights and dragons. I'm liking it, so far." _The Transcendent King _was one of the best fantasy books she'd ever read. Of course, having a big geek out over it any time someone mentioned it would not end well. 

"Nice." Blake resumed her spot at the table, then frowned at her book.

"What's wrong?" Red asked, setting down the books on fairy tales. 

"It's...in a different spot," Blake said. 

"Someone probably just moved it," White said. 

"Yeah, but...while this library is technically open to the public, no one ever comes in here," Blake said. "It's a thirty minute drive to the city, and there's a library right there in the city."

"So you have a guest," White said. "It doesn't seem like a big deal." She began sorting through her stack of history books but stopped abruptly. "What's this one?" She held up a featureless black book. No title, no author. 

"I...have no idea," Blake said. She took it, looking at the cover and the spine. The book felt warm in her hands. _Odd__. _She opened it to the first page. 

_Advanced Summoning: Multiple Duplicates and the Manifestation of Divine Power_

Blake read the chapter title, then read it again, just to be sure. "Um...I think...this is a book...on summoning demons."

"What?" Red said. She took the book, and began reading. "_So far, I have noticed two great limits on summoning, that being the limit of one copy of each demon at a time, and the fact that you cannot summon one with silver eyes._" Red trailed off. "Oh, shit."

"Uh...what do we do?" White asked. "This is...important, right?"

"Very important," Blake said. "From what I understand, you can't summon demons without one of these books. We need to get this to Raven." Raven would know what to do with it. For as long as Blake had known her, Raven had known what to do, from comforting the lost child she found to slaying horrifying demons. Blake picked up the book, rising. The book warmed her hands as she lifted it up. She shuddered. "C'mon. Let's get this to Raven." She began walking at a hurried pace. White strode next to her, then stopped and turned around. "Ruby?"

Blake turned and looked at Red. Red was standing at the table, looking, searching among the shelves of books. "I...thought I saw..." She shook her head. "Must have been my imagination." She hurried up and walked up next to White and Blake. "And it's Red."

"Huh?" White looked at her as they began walking. 

"I'm going by Red now, I guess."


	7. Yellow

There were only a couple of times in Yellow's life in which she didn't know how to feel. This was one of them. 

She sat, at a table, with Raven, Summer, and Tai. Raven, who had left her when she was a year old. Summer, who had gone on a mission and never returned. And Tai, who was...Tai. Of course, none of them were the Summer, Raven, and Tai she knew, from her home. Which made everything the weirder. 

And made the board game they were playing just slightly awkward. 

"Okay," Yellow said. "I don't have any of the resources for a small building..."

"Settlement," Raven corrected. 

"...but I have enough rocks and wheat to turn one of my preexisting buildings into a bigger one that's better."

"City," Raven told her. 

"Hey, I can do that with both of my tiny buildings," Yellow said. 

"And with that, you...you win the game," Summer said, frowning. "Huh."

"Congratulations," Raven said. "You kicked the ass of every skilled fighter in the royal family at the same time."

"I heard that," Ruby called out, from across the room. 

"That means you are not def," Raven replied. 

Yellow looked at the board in front of her. "Well, good game? I...still don't know what's going on."

The door opened, and Blake, Red, and White burst into the room. Yellow looked up. "How was the library?" she asked. 

"We found this," Blake said, holding up a featureless black book. 

"And that is what?" Summer asked, raising an eyebrow. Raven leapt from her seat, taking the book and opening it to the first page. "Where did you find this?" she asked, closing it. 

"In the history section," Blake said. "It was just sort of put there. I didn't notice it until I sat down."

"Hmm..." Raven frowned. 

"What is it?" Yellow asked, unable to contain her curiosity. 

"A book that describes, in great detail, how to summon demons," Raven said slowly. 

Yellow stared at the thin book. "Are you sure about the 'great detail' part?" she asked. 

"I...had an idea while coming up here," White said slowly. Yellow looked at her. White looked around at everyone, realizing everyone was staring at her. "Well, if these books can be used to summon demons, can they be used to unsummon them?"

Yellow looked at Raven. "Is that possible?"

Raven stared at the book. "If it is...it wouldn't be written down. From everything I've seen of these...Salem...the author...didn't care about anyone else."

"It's worth a try," White said. 

Raven glared at the book. "Fine." She handed the book to White. "But...do not try any of the spells contained in there without consulting me first," she said pointedly. "I will know if you do."

"How?" White asked. 

Raven glared at her. 

"Fair enough," White said, recoiling. 

"Do you think there'll be anything in there that can help us?" Yellow asked. She wasn't sure about how she felt about the idea. She didn't know anything about the book White held. And the fact that the books were used to summon demons...but Yellow was a demon now, wasn't she? 

"I mean...if there's a chance we can use it like that, shouldn't we try?" White asked. "If we can get ourselves home...isn't it worth a shot?"

"I don't think you're missing that much, at your home," Yellow muttered. White glared at her. Yellow shrugged. Then, she looked at Raven, and Summer. Raven had walked back over and was chatting with Summer. Tai was sitting back, smiling at them. Blake gave her an awkward look, then backed away, giving Yellow and White some talking space. Yellow thought back to her own home--Raven, off somewhere else, Summer, long dead, and Tai, who...was as strong as ever, but had lived through so much pain. 

"Then again, am I really missing too much at my home?" Yellow wondered. 

"Yang," Red said. 

"It's Yellow now," she said. "C'mon. Let's all four of us find a quiet spot to talk about this."

"Why wouldn't we want to go home?" Black demanded, folding her arms. 

Yellow sat down at the edge of her bed. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I miss everyone at our home," Yellow told her. "But...take a look at this place. It's perfect. My mom came back, Ruby's mom never died, we're all still friends."

"But they have demons here," White pointed out. "Giant monsters, like that Amalgam thing."

"But they only rarely get summoned," Yellow returned. "Summer said that the Amalgam's reappearance was the first summons that had occurred in five years. And it wasn't exactly an everyday thing before that. It was a rare thing. And the only thing that can summon demons is the books by this Salem person. Merely knowing the spells isn't enough. And I don't think they can be duplicated. So, is it worth this book's continued existence just for us to return home, when this place is...well, just about perfect?"

"We...changed," Red said. Yellow turned to her. Red was staring at a comic that sat on a nearby table. "We aren't humans...or Faunus...anymore. We're demons. We're way stronger and way faster. People would notice."

"What are you talking about?" White demanded. 

"Four students go missing, then reappear a few days later, suddenly way stronger and faster, with a lot more Aura, and they leak black smog instead of blood," Red said flatly, staring at White. "If I heard that, I would be suspicious. At this point, it may be possible to return home--but we might not get a warm welcome."

They all looked at each other. 

"I...I don't know," Red said, her voice cracking. "I...I want to go home, but...but...we might...might not..."

Yellow rushed across the room, hugging her sister. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay." 

"How?" Red sobbed. "How is it okay?"

"It'll be okay," Yellow told her. "We're all together, right? We'll _make _it okay."

Red sobbed against Yellow. Red had never really cried a whole lot before--only once in Yellow's memory, when Summer...

Yellow's grip tightened around Red. She looked up at White and Black. "We...we need to come to a decision. I...I don't want to be separated. Especially when we have no way of back-and-forth travel. Who wants to go home, and who wants to stay?"


	8. Summer

When they came to tell Summer and Raven their decision, they were all in agreement. 

"At least for now, we're gonna be staying in this world," Red told them. "Especially when we don't even know if it's possible to return home."

"Where do you plan on living?" Raven asked, not looking up from the chess board. 

"I...I don't know. It's a big world, why not explore it?"

"Do you want, like, a guide or something?" Summer asked. She moved her knight across the board. 

"Ooh, bad move, Summer," Raven said. From out of nowhere, a bishop knocked the knight over, and Raven moved the fallen piece off the board. 

"We might need a map," White said. "But probably not a guide."

"Any suggestions, for our first trip?" Yellow asked. 

Many suggestions came to Summer's head. A beautiful waterfall over a crimson forest. A geyser, spewing hot water out of the earth in a brilliant display. The Winter Castle, where they stayed when the coldest season came by. 

But Raven was faster. 

"Cottontail Woods," Raven told them. 

"Why Cottontail Woods?" Summer asked. She considered its odd reputation a moment, before Raven knocked a bishop off the board. 

"They can be pretty beautiful, when the lighting is right," Raven said. "Plus, there's a lot of epic ruins there. Exploring those could be fun. It also has a town in it, so you can go and get supplies when needed."

"Anything else?" Black asked. 

Raven looked at her. "It's also where the Amalgam was summoned, for the first time," she said quietly. The four girls looked at each other. Raven laughed, closing her eyes. She had a beautiful laugh. If only Summer heard it more often. "If you want to know where it came from, that's where you can find out," she said. "I...I know the story, but I don't really want to talk about it."

Summer knew her opinions of it. Summer had seen(and fought) the thing herself. If she had seen that thing being created, she wouldn't want to talk about it either. 

"Okay. Cottontail Woods, you said?" Red asked. She looked at her team. "I guess we'll go talk to Da--Tai about the trip."

"Tai could help you." Without opening her eyes, Raven reached over and moved her queen. "Checkmate."

Red nodded. "By, then." The four left. 

"Cottontail Woods?" Summer asked Raven. "Why there?"

"Summer, you are a brilliant strategist, but you have absolutely no idea where to put your pieces," Raven told her. 

Summer looked out the window. "The weather's nice. Good travelling weather."

**9 years earlier...**

Raven was a mystery to Summer. Rarely talkative, secretive, and slightly obnoxious, yet loving and caring, and she laughed like she knew how. She had clearly been through a lot, and Summer understood that. Yet she wanted to get to know this woman. So, obviously, she invited her to dinner at a fancy restaurant. 

Raven sat down across the table from Summer. She wore her normal clothing--the shallow-cut red and black dress with shorts underneath, and the small raven talisman. Summer had put on a long silver dress, a beaded necklace, and high-heels. She had decided to leave her crown at home. 

"I spent a long time, after I got your invitation, thinking about how to say this," Raven said, "but I'm kind of into guys. And you're, well, married."

"What?" Summer blinked, confused. Then she understood. "What? No! This isn't a date!"

Raven smiled. "I know."

"Then...why...the hell...what?"

"I wanted to see your reaction," Raven said, still smiling. "But seriously, why did you invite me here?"

"To get to know you," Summer said. 

"There isn't much to know," Raven replied. 

"There's never 'not much to know'," Summer told her, waggling a finger. "Everyone has a lot about them. Take, for instance, our clothing."

Raven raised an eyebrow. 

"I came in...well, this..." Summer gestured to her dress. "You came in what you find comfortable."

"Because I put comfort over fashion, and anyone who says otherwise can F off," Raven said flatly. 

"See?" Summer said. "You don't care about what other people think--if it's right to you, what more is there to say?"

Raven frowned. "I...I guess that sounds right."

"Most of what I've seen is the fact that you aren't really comfortable with a spotlight," Summer said. "So, I haven't really gotten a chance to talk to you to much."

"What is it you really want to talk about? The weather?" Raven laughed, seemingly at her own little joke. 

"What's with the bird necklace?"

Raven's hand immediately clenched around the talisman. Summer leaned forward, resting her face on her arms, giving Raven an expectant look. Raven sighed. "I spent several years looking for this, and by the time I was finally able to return home, my family...had moved on. It isn't really important--but I don't really feel like throwing it away."

"Then don't," Summer said. "I mean, there's no shortage of space. We own, like, four castles. One for each season."

Raven looked at her. "Not like I was going on with this big debate about it."

"So, what exactly is it?" Summer asked. 

"I'm not answering that right now," Raven replied. 

"But that only makes me want to ask again," Summer pointed out. 

"Suck it up."

Summer was surprised. She had learned another thing about Raven--she didn't really watch her words. It had been a while since she knew anyone who'd tell her to suck it up. "Have you talked much to your brother?" Summer snapped her fingers a few times. "Qrow! That's his name." She eyed the bird talisman. "Raven, Qrow, birds..."

"Our mother had a sick sense of humor," Raven replied. "Among other things."

Summer felt like she wanted to press, but Raven didn't seem like she wanted to talk about it. 

"Though I must say, I do...kind of like fancy dresses, as long as they're comfortable," Raven admitted. "But I must say, they are terrible for fighting in."

Summer raised an eyebrow. "Which is why I don't wear skirts while slaying demons." Raven grabbed Summer roughly by the shoulder and hurled the two of them to the side. A car smashed through the roof, destroyed they're table, and slid across the restaurant. 

"Thanks," Summer said. 

"If you had no idea that was coming, how have you not been killed in your sleep? Or poisoned?" Raven burst out. 

"I have the divine powers of God on my side," Summer said flatly, giving Raven a look. "Very few people want to pick fights with God. Also, it makes me invulnerable, which complicates things for would-be assassins."

"I...didn't bring a sword," Raven said, biting her lip. 

Summer rose, summoning a massive, white scythe made out of divine energy. "Raven, this was lunch. You didn't need to bring a sword. Besides, I've got this. You don't need to do anymore fighting."

Raven scoffed, rising. "No way in hell anyone else is fighting my battles for me." 

"My restaurant!" the chef cried. "My car!"

"Send me the bill," Summer called out, jumping out the window. She landed in front of the restaurant, kicking her heels off, the shoes flying away. "Just so you know, ass-hat, you picked a bad time...to..." 

She didn't know quite what the thing in front of her was. It was a demon--that much she could tell for certain. It looked like Ruby. And Weiss. And Blake. And Yang, all at the same time. It had four arms, two sprouting from its back, equipped with massive gauntlets. In its other two hands it carried a scythe. Coming from its shoulders were four heads, one for each of Summer's children. Coming out of its hair was a massive swarm of black ribbons, each ending in a small, black sword. And one of them in a nasty looking rapier. 

_Time to rephrase--ass-hats. Plural. _"Uh...hi?"

"Yooou are not Raaaven," four voices hissed, slightly out of sync. "Where is Raaaven? She was in theeere, wasn't she?"

"How did you get all the way here without the sirens going off?" Summer demanded. "Or anyone screaming?"

"Fuck!" Raven cried, landing lithely beside Summer. 

"How did you not break anything?" Summer asked as Raven leapt to her feet. 

"I leapt down carefully," Raven said. 

"Raaaven," the thing moaned. It sounded...pleased?

"Do you know what this thing is?" Summer asked. 

"I've been calling it the Amalgam," Raven replied. "And...its a demon?"

"And?"

"It's a demon that holds a grudge," Raven replied. "What surprises me is, after the last few times I killed it, it kept coming back for more." She glared at it, then looked at Summer. "It's not that tough. I can take it on easy enough."

"But you don't have a sword," Summer pointed out.

Raven held out a hand, summoning a sword made out of blue, crackling power. Summer's jaw dropped. "_That_is why I went after the talisman," Raven said. Then she ran forward, slashing and rolling past and around the Amalgam, flashes of blue light burst out with each swing of the sword. Summer watched her for a minute, then grinned, lunging into the air, scythe raised. 

One of the Amalgam's heads spun around, facing her. Summer suddenly found herself seeing not the twisted abomination in front of her, but Yang. "Shit!" she cried, leaping aside before her attack hit. She rolled across the ground, landing on her feet and shooting at the Amalgam. It cried out in pain, backing off as the phantom bullets hit it with puffs of white smoke. Then it lurched forward, slashing at her. She knocked its scythe aside, put her gun up to its face. 

Ruby's face. 

She hesitated, trying to tell herself, _It's not Ruby--it's a demon that looks like her._ She didn't have enough time to fully convince herself. One of its fists slammed into her, throwing her into a wall. The wall shattered, and she hit the ground. Her scythe had disappeared, without her willing it into existence every second. She looked up at the Amalgam, all four of its heads looking down at her with large, gaping grins. It lifted one hand, ready to smash her into the ground. 

_Ooh, man, this is gonna hurt._

Its severed hand landed in front of her, thudding against the ground and disappearing into black smoke. Raven looked down at her. "That thing isn't your..._our_...children. It is something unique, and there is nothing about its existence that doesn't cause suffering."

"Playing the hero, Raven?" the Amalgam hissed. "All the better. When I kill you, you can know exactly how badly you fai--" Raven stabbed upwards, letting Yang's severed head fall to the ground at her feet. She spun around the Amalgam, slashing off its other big arm and Blake's head. As it turned around to face her, she skewered Weiss' head. That head disappeared into smoke, and the Amalgam fell to its knees. Raven paused, then held out the sword for Summer. 

"You kill it," Raven told her. 

"Me?" Summer took the sword hesitantly. 

"The first time I fought this thing, it kicked my ass," Raven told her, "but only because when I saw my daughter in it, I hesitated. You will fight demons that look like your children. When you do, you need to not hesitate." 

Summer looked at the sword. She looked down at the Amalgam. The Amalgam looked up at her--but Ruby's head on it had the eyes closed, red cracks covering the eyelids. The Amalgam breathed shallowly. Waiting.

Waiting for her to kill it. 

"I...I can't," Summer handed the sword back to Raven, looking away. "I know its not Ruby, but...but...I just can't."

There was a harsh silence. Then the Amalgam laughed. "Now," it said, its lone voice bitter and sarcastic. Summer looked at it. "Now is when someone shows me mercy. Not any other point. Now. Very well, Summer. You have your mer--"

Raven stomped on its head. Bone cracked, and black smoke crawled from beneath her boot. The Amalgam's corpse disintegrated. "Honestly," Raven scoffed. "I thought you could do this." She turned and strode off. The blue sword crackled and disappeared from Summer's hands. Summer was left standing there, smashed concrete and black smoke all around. 


	9. Velvet Scarlatina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I added a bit to the end of the last chapter. Second, a time skip happens here. The fanfic skips ahead, with demon team RWBY having gone off, exploring the continent, and not having contacted the Royals in a year.

Velvet breathed in and out deeply. Today was their first big mission. It was going to go perfectly. For Coco. After their embarrassing test mission, things needed to go perfectly. 

"How long till we arrive at Armacus?" she asked Fox. 

"Not too much longer," the dark-skinned man replied. How he'd earned his nickname, and what his real name were, were both unknowns to Velvet. But she knew he was a good fighter. That was all that was needed. The fact that he had a terrific sense of humor and made a killer mug of cocoa were bonuses. 

"Alright," Coco said, hands tightening on her machine gun. Velvet put a hand on her shoulder. Coco smiled, her eyes showing behind her sunglasses. She straightened the brown scarf she wore. "Alright. We get in, find the demon, take it out. We do things by the book. Everyone understand?"

Yatsuhashi and Velvet nodded. Fox gave an, "Understood."

"And Velvet, please, for the love of God, don't take off the glove." Velvet nodded. Coco breathed in and out. "Good. That's...that's the last thing we'd want to do in public. Just stick to ranged combat, you should be fine."

Velvet rubbed her right hand, which was wrapped in a tight white glove. "It's been feeling sore, anyway. I'm not sure how much use I'd even get out of it."

"We're...here?" The car pulled to a sudden stop. Fox peaked out the window. "Ma'am! What are you doing in the road?"

"...walking?" came the reply. 

Agitated, Coco slammed the door open and exited the car. "What the hell do you mean, walking?"

Velvet hurriedly jumped out after Coco. She looked at the source of trouble, a young woman(though she didn't look much younger than Velvet herself) in a black shirt and skirt, with a red hood over her back. Over one eye was a metal plate with three slits in it. 

"Yeah, walking," she replied. "And with all do respect, you're the first person I've seen driving on this road."

Coco looked like she was about to say something, but Velvet seized her moment to deescalate the situation. "Look, there's a big demon running around. We're heading in to--"

"The three-headed thing? With the lizard tail?"

Velvet shared a look with Coco. "You saw it?"

"I killed it," the woman said matter-of-factly. She patted the large combat rifle over her back. "With my scythe."

"That looks like a rifle," Fox said, still staring out the window. 

"It turns into a scythe," she said, sounding irritated. "I don't know why everyone finds this hard to believe."

"You...killed it," Coco said flatly. She readjusted her sunglasses. "I...what's your name?"

"People call me Red."

There was a stunned silence. "Red? As in Red, the Crimson Reaver?" Coco asked. 

"That's what everyone calls me, even though they're not using that word correctly," Red muttered. 

"Uh...wow," Coco put a hand on her hip, looking at Velvet. 

"I guess we can officially say that the only who beat us to the chase was the Crimson frikkin' Reaver," Fox said. 

"How many stories can there possibly be about me? I haven't even been in this dimension for a full year," Red stated.

"I mean, the whole 'demon who hunts other demons' thing is really cool," Velvet said. 

"Aren't you supposed to have, like, your own little entourage?" Coco asked. 

"My friends? We got separated," Red answered. "Also, I've got places I need to get to, so...see ya?" 

"Wait!" Coco rushed over, holding up her phone. "I need to take a photo, otherwise Officer Torchwick's never gonna believe me."

"Ah, he's an officer here," Red said with a grimace. She smiled for Coco's selfie, then grimaced again. "I just hope I never meet the bastard."

"Huh? Torchwick's a hero," Coco said. 

"Here he is," Red said. Then, with an echoing crack sound, she disappeared, rose petals flying through the air. Coco pulled out her phone, then dialed a number. "Um...Officer Torchwick?"

"Did you kill it?" Roman's voice replied. "If so, there are other people you should be reporting it to."

"The Crimson Reaver beat us to it," Fox called out. 

"And I'm sending you the picture now," Coco said. "To prove it."

There was silence on the phone for a minute. "So that's where she went," Roman said. "Okay. Good to know. So, uh, come back, I guess, if she killed it." He hung up. 

"So, does this count as having gone perfectly?" Coco asked. 

Velvet considered multiple answers, a kind one, a rude one, and a truthful one. Finally, she said, "Technically?"

Coco shrugged. "Good enough."


	10. Pyrrha Nikos

Pyrrha had already finished packing her bag when Jaune plucked up the courage to ask why. 

"Uh, Pyrrha? What's with the bag?"

"The town of Arvinum was attacked yesterday," Pyrrha said bitterly. 

"Your hometown?" Jaune asked. 

Pyrrha turned and glared at him. "Yes, my hometown, where my mother and father and sister live. Go on and kick me while I'm down, will ya?" She fumed, quickly trying to calm down. "Sorry. I'm just..."

"Pissed," Raven said, from the doorway. "We got the word this morning. A guard stationed there managed to get the message out. Three unique demons went in, rampaging, and a fourth one...appeared to be a duplicate. With all the attacks that have been happening in the past year, we've realized something's going on. So the two of us are going to Arvinum to scope out the situation."

"But...should the rest of us..."

"You three should stay here," Raven said. "Summer's still a bit away, and Roman's also not going to be here for a while. You three guard the royal family."

"We'll be back when we can," Pyrrha said. She hefted the bag over her shoulder, then followed Raven out the door. 

  
Pyrrha was in a dilemma. On the one hand, her family could still be savable. On the other, if she rushed in without preparation, she might end up being unable to save them. As the jet took off, Raven pulled out her phone. 

"Pyrrha?" Raven said, breaking the silence. 

Pyrrha looked up. 

"Are you alright?" Raven asked. 

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"No." Pyrrha looked away from her, out the window. Clouds lazily drifted by, in no real hurry. 

"We're going to save them, Pyrrha," Raven said. "I promise--"

"You can't promise that," Pyrrha told her, turning and glaring at her. "You can't promise you can save them! They might already be dead!"

Raven hugged her. Raven wasn't generally into hugs. Pyrrha was taken off guard. 

"I'm sorry," Raven whispered. "I'm not good at this sort of thing. I really, really am not good at this."

Pyrrha didn't know what to say. So she said nothing, simply hugging Raven back. "If they are still alive," Raven said slowly, "we will save them. I promise you, I will not let anything happen to them. And if they're already dead, we will find the one who did it, and take them down."

  
The jet landed outside a burning town. 

As Pyrrha walked down the gangway, she heard Raven mutter, "Shit." She looked around at the nearby buildings. She recognized some of them. The butcher's shop. The blacksmith's. She picked up a battered wooden sign next to a completely smashed building. It was the old garden shop she remembered. 

Her mother really liked it. 

"What the hell happened to this place?" Pyrrha asked. 

Raven frowned, picking up something off the ground. "The message said a demon," she said. "It would take a really big demon to do all of this on its own. People would have noticed it coming." She clenched her fist around a shard of black glass, breaking it. "In any case, the air around here reeks of magic. There were humans fighting here, using powerful spells." 

"How do you know magic was involved?" Pyrrha asked. 

Raven held up a hand, lightning crackling between her fingers. 

"Oh. Right."

Raven walked past her. "We need to start looking. If there are any survivors, we need to get them onto the jet."

Pyrrha nodded. Pain tightened her chest, as she looked around at the broken remnants of her childhood home. She wiped tears from her eyes, peering through broken walls, when she noticed something odd. "Why aren't there any corpses?" she said, after a minute. 

Raven spun around, scanning the area. 

"Shouldn't...at least someone had to have died. So where are the corpses?" She didn't want to think about the corpses. 

"You're right," Raven said. "We should be smelling charred flesh and bones, given the state of these buildings. The only way there'd be no corpses is if...everyone left before the village was destroyed."

"But we only got the message after the town was destroyed," Pyrrha said. She looked at Raven. "Could everyone have been taken?"

"Possibly, though I can't think of any reasons why," Raven said with a grimace. She suddenly stopped her area scan, her eyes focusing on something. Pyrrha followed her gaze. Spikes of fear ran through her. Her eyes landed on a tuft of red, sticking out from beneath a fallen board. Red hair. She broke into a run, ignoring Raven's cry of, "Pyrrha! Wait!" Pyrrha raced across the road, falling to her knees by the red hair. 

The first corpse. Her mother's corpse. She stared, not knowing what else to do. She was crying, screaming. 

Wood creaked. She didn't care. A large black boot stomped on the ground in front of the corpse. She looked up. She looked up at four different heads on the same two shoulders. The Amalgam grinned. "Hello, Pyrrhaaaaa," four voices said in slight disharmony. "Grieeeeving, are weeee?" One of its smaller hands reached up, grabbing her chin. The glove felt off, and irritated her skin. "We have lost people, too. It never gets easy."

Pyrrha blinked, confused. The Amalgam's gaping grins leered over her. Then, it lifted her into the air and threw her. Raven jumped and caught her, and the two landed in a heap on the ground. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Pyrrha said, sitting up. The Amalgam grinned at them. 

Raven dusted herself off, rising. "Pyrrha, don't lie to me."

"I'm not dead, so I'm okay," Pyrrha snapped. 

"Not being dead means you're alive," Raven told her, "not that you're okay."

The Amalgam laughed, striding forward, scythe out. 

"Pyrrha...get behind me," Raven said. 

Pyrrha backed away. "Yes, because hiding behind someone else ever did anything to protect anyone," the Amalgam said. "Really, Raaaven. You should know by now. How many times have you failed to protect people now?" 

Raven pulled out her swords. "This time...stay dead, bitch."


	11. Blake Belladonna

Blake woke up, feeling sore. Which was odd--she hadn't done anything to make her feel sore. She didn't care too much. She rose from bed, stretching. Yang snored on the bunk above her. Ruby and Weiss slept peacefully on their bunk bed, sitting right next to each other, which kind of defeated the purpose of a bunk bed. But Weiss had lead a troubled life so far, and needed a bit of extra support. Blake crept out of the room. 

"Going somewhere?" Ren asked, leaning against the wall. 

Blake let out an aggravated sigh. "Out for a walk?"

"I do hope you planned on telling one of us," Ren replied. 

Blake sighed again. "Fine. Go tell Dad."

Ren nodded and walked down the hallway. Blake cracked a smile, then walked the opposite direction, through the living room, and out the door. She rode the elevator down to the floor, then walked out the door. The sky was dark and gray. Occasionally, a drop of rain fell. Blake took a deep breath, smelling the air. Cold and wet, but warm and free. 

Blake liked rain. 

She walked along the side of the road. "Out for a walk?" called out a shopkeeper. 

"Yeah," Blake said, walking over. One day, she'd actually ask his name. 

"Ditch your bodyguards again?" he asked, laughing. "Don't you get into trouble for that?"

"Just don't tell Raven," Blake said with a chuckle and a conspiratorial wink. She picked up an apple from a stand, then flipped a coin to the shopkeeper. "These are much better when you pay for them," she told him. 

"I imagine so," said the shopkeeper with a glare. Then he smiled and laughed. "I remember like it was yesterday, when you were sneaking around, swiping wallets and fruit, ya little scamp."

Blake blushed. 

"Not like I ever cared that much," the shopkeeper laughed, punching her shoulder. "Not like I don't make enough money to begrudge an apple to a homeless person."

"I do have a home now," Blake told him. 

"And you are paying for your fruit now," the shopkeeper replied. 

Blake winked. "Most of it," she said, dropping the apple core into a trash bin. 

The shopkeeper laughed, clearly thinking she was joking. He stopped laughing when he saw her smile as she walked off. 

Blake didn't have fond memories of her childhood--for her, being a child had lasted a very short amount of time. She remembered scavenging for scraps and loose coins, swiping wallets. 

The beatings when she got caught.

Except for when Raven caught her. She remembered so clearly the terror when her small wrist was grabbed, and the look in the strange woman's eye when she saw the pickpocket. Just about the last thing Blake had expected was for Raven to invite her out to lunch. And then into her home. Blake had been scared, at first, of the fancy house, and the many people. But she had quickly warmed up to Yang, and then to Ruby and Weiss. She was still unsure how she felt about Summer--she was the queen, shouldn't she be able to solve the problem of people going hungry? 

But Blake had never voiced her concerns. Why bring strife into her house over it? Part of her felt selfish--weren't other people homeless, going hungry? If she could help them, shouldn't she?

Blake had never been a philosopher. And she'd never been one for working around other peoples' needs. Yes, that fact started a few arguments. But they'd always made up int he end. 

"Weiss?" she asked, suddenly seeing a white dress. No, it wasn't Weiss. Weiss didn't have a scar over one eye. "White?" she corrected. 

"Hello, Blakshe," White said, lifting up a thing of beer. 

"Are you...drunk?" Blake asked. 

"Maybe." White hiccuped, then fell over onto the floor. The barkeeper sighed, putting down the glass she was cleaning. "Do you know her?" she asked. 

Blake considered that question. "A little."

"She's been here since last night," the barkeeper said. "I don't think she has anywhere to go. Poor thing. I wonder what she's been through, to be drinking like that." She frowned, then looked at Blake. "Do you think you, perhaps, could take her in?"

"Um...I'll call dad?" She wasn't sure when she'd started calling Tai dad. She did know he liked it. She pulled out her phone, dialed his number, then waited for him to answer. 

"It was a mean trick you pulled on Ren," were Tai's first words. 

"You remember White? And her friends?"

"The demons? Yeah. It wasn't exactly something you forget about."

"Um...White's drunk in a bar, and it looks like she could use a spot to stay," Blake told him. "And she's...too big for me to carry."

"I'll bring the car," Tai said. "Which bar? Where is it?"

Blake looked at the barkeeper. "What's this place called?"

"Red Sunset," she replied. 

"Did you hear that?" Blake asked. 

"Yeah," Tai said. "I know that place, Qrow goes there when he feels like drinking. Say hi to Sarah for me."

"Are you Sarah?" Blake asked the barkeeper. She nodded. "Taiyang says hi." 

"Oh, you must be his daughter," the barkeeper said with a laugh. "In that case, you can pay her bill."

"Oh, boy," Tai said with a sigh. "Well, I'm coming over there."

"Thanks, dad." Blake hung up, then sat down on the ground next to White. White reached up and booped Blake. "Hey, dere, kitty-cat."

Blake sighed. She was in for a long time. 


	12. Amalgam

The pain was fading. But then it burst back into existence. They were being summoned again. 

Power flowed into them. Something was different this time. They'd never seen their body form--but they knew that this time they looked different. 

And the felt different, this time, as well. She opened her eyes. This time they only had one head? But that head had four eyes, each one a different color--yellow, purple, pale blue, burning silver. And they had three mouths? That was certainly a sensation--three mouths on one head. Fewer than they were used too, but it was fine. They didn't care that much. But their clothing remained unchanged--a cross between Ruby's dress and Yang's shirt, but with one sleeve being Weiss' sleeve. Their stinger came out of their back, just a little lower than their second pair of arms, and almost a dozen ribbons came out of the back of their head, bursting through the hood. 

"Did you at least kill her student this time?" a young voice asked. 

The Amalgam leaned over, giving the speaker as much of a glare as they could manage. But they couldn't stop smiling for long. "You have a lot of nerve, Oscar Pines."

"And you have a lot of work," Oscar replied. "But since your first Summoner...didn't actually know how to summon anything properly, we fixed a few things for you. How's your eyesight, Ruby?"

"...I can see," the Amalgam said. Only one voice spoke, of course. It would be rude for all four to answer when he spoke directly to Ruby. 

"And is the pain gone?" he asked. 

"You fixed it," the Amalgam said. They were stunned. How had he done it? Four voices battled at once, each asking different questions. For a person with four souls, it was rare for the Amalgam to be at a loss for words. 

"We thought as much," Oscar chuckled. He began walking around the Amalgam, his cane tapping against the ground. "If you are going to actually be able to kill Raven by the thirty-first, we figured you could use a power boost."

Hate. The Amalgam felt nothing but hate for Raven Branwen. As the hate rose, _power _rippled through her body. Power that the Amalgam hadn't had access to for many years. A giant, glowing white glyph appeared over the ground, rose petals circled the air around her, and her larger pair of hands burst into brilliant fire. 

_Semblances. _

"That better?" Oscar asked with a chuckle. 

"YES." Three voices, no longer out of sync. Each one's thoughts were her own. Each one could think, not as one, but as their own. The Amalgam had been robbed of her very self--but Oscar Pines had restored her. 

As much as she could be restored. 

"Raven will die," the Amalgam said, their voice echoing. "You can be sure of that."

Killing Raven wasn't work--it was pleasure. 


	13. Jaune Arc

Jaune stepped out the door as a familiar black car rolled up the driveway. "Good morning, Mr. Branwen," he said. "Nice to see you again." Qrow smiled at him, dusting off his tuxedo--he always did that, even though he never had actual dust on it. When Raven had called him out on it, he had said simply, "Exactly."

"Hey there, Jaune," he said. 

"Where's everyone else?" Qrow asked. "Last time I pulled up in the drive, there were four people pointing guns at me."

"Raven and Pyrrha are off on a mission," Jaune replied. 

"Well, now, that's a surprise," Qrow said, rubbing a hand through his hair. 

"And a shame," a second, familiar voice said. A large puff of yellow stepped out of the car. "I'd have liked to talk to her," Yellow said, 

"Oh, um, hi, Yellow," Jaune said. He didn't know anything about Yellow, despite her being a duplicate of Yang. 

"Hey, Jaune," Yellow said, straightening her sunglasses. She smiled, looking up at the summer home. "Man, this place...it's been a while."

Qrow walked up the steps to the door. "Found her hitchhiking by the side of the road, figured there was a story behind it," he said with a laugh. "Apparently, this place is their team's designated place to meet up if they get separated and become unable to communicate with each other."

"Wait...their meet up place is our house?" Jaune asked. He looked over at Yellow, who was staring intently at a statue. "Actually, I can see that." Yellow looked over and waved at them. "Do you...want to come inside?" Jaune asked. 

Yellow adopted a contemplative face, mulling the question over. "Mmmm--yes," she decided. She strode up the steps. "Has anyone else from Team RWBY arrived?"

Jaune wasn't quite sure how to answer that. "White," he said. 

"Is she drunk again?"

"She's...dealing with a hangover," Jaune replied. 

"Ah, fuck," Yellow muttered. "Where is she?"

"Again?" Yellow said. 

"I don't need you to lecture me," White muttered, covering her face with her pillow. She was lying down on the living room couch. The royals were playing a board game over to the side, except for Ruby, who had immediately rushed over to her uncle, and was now hanging from Yellow's outstretched arm, laughing. 

"You really need to stop this," Yellow said. 

"_I don't need you to lecture me,_" White snapped, forcefully this time. She pulled the pillow off her face, glaring at Yellow. 

"I didn't think so, but here we are," Yellow replied. Jaune took an awkward step back, not sure what to do. 

"Please leave me alone," White said, covering her face with her pillow again. 

Yellow put Ruby down, then leaned down on one knee. "White, please. Stop it. I don't like seeing you like this."

"Yellow, I'm fine," White argued. 

"You're not. White, you're...you were always the careful one, the cautious one."

"Well, there's nothing to be cautious of, is there?" White snapped, throwing the pillow. It hit the wall, then dropped to the ground. White sat up, glaring at Yellow. "This world is perfect--there's no Grimm to fight, no homicidal terrorists we need to stop, no White Fang extremists trying to wipe out humanity! Why can't I get a fucking drink?"

"What's going on in here?" a new voice asked. A silver cloak fluttered as Summer Rose strode into the room. "I heard shouting," she said. 

"Your majesty!" Jaune spun towards her. "I was unaware you'd returned!"

"Please, Jaune, we're all friends here," Summer told him with a smile. "Except these two, I guess."

"Um...hi, Miss Rose," White said, blushing. 

Yellow stood up. "Sorry. We didn't mean to disturb you."

"I came back as soon as I got Raven's message," Summer said. She sat down on the arm of White's couch. "You're teammates care about you. They don't like seeing you suffer."

White flinched. Yellow leaned over and hugged her. "We love you, White!"

"Yellow...please stop." White sat up straight after Yellow let go and stepped back. 

"Raven and Pyrrha left?" Summer asked Jaune. Jaune should have been used to her speaking directly to him by now--he was, after all, the team leader. He was still surprised every single time. 

"Uh...yeah. Pyrrha wanted to go help her family, and Raven didn't want to let her go alone," Jaune said. Raven hadn't said so--but he'd been around her long enough to know her tells. He still remembered her entering the school, and going in and having a talk with Officer Torchwick. He remembered being called to the office, worrying he'd accidentally done something wrong. But Torchwick didn't say anything to him. He sat back and let Raven ask a few questions. Not about JNPR's skill--personal questions. Their goals. Their wants and needs. And, finally, their ambition.

They'd all talked a bit about that question, because they didn't know what she meant, and how she meant it. They eventually decided that, as bodyguards, they wanted a role where they would matter, but not see too much in the way of field work, and yet still have a decent pay. She'd smiled, and said that she had the perfect job for them, if they were interested. 

Jaune had often wondered how he would have reacted if he had known that she was going to set them up, protecting the queen's kids. He'd often wondered how things would be different. 

"That sounds like her," Summer said, putting a hand on her hip. "Must have been important to her, to make her actually leave."

"Where'd they go?" White asked, standing up. She wobbled, grabbing the arm of the couch, then stood up straight. 

"Arvinum," Jaune told her. "Pyrrha's hometown. She was really worried about her family."

"I've never seen her like that before," Nora added. The quiet sort, she rarely put anything into conversations. When everyone looked at her, she shared an awkward look with the room before adding, "She was distressed."

"Arvinum?" Yellow asked. When Jaune nodded, she frowned, crossing her hands over her chest. "Never heard of it."

"It's a small town," Jaune replied. "I don't know anything apart from what Pyrrha's told me. It's way out in the country, basically just a single row of houses, with a population in the double-digits."

"Who would attack Arvinum like this?" Summer wondered aloud. "And why?"

Her phone rang. She pulled it out, but the caller appeared to have already hung up. She frowned, staring at the phone. "That...was Pyrrha..."

"What did she say?" Yellow asked. 

"Nothing. She probably...just butt dialed me or something, and was in a rush to hang up before I got the call." As she pocketed her phone, Jaune realized she didn't believe that any more than he did. 


	14. Black

Black leapt through the trees, just ahead of the demons inside. She hid in a treetop, peering through the leaves. 

"Hiding again?" Adam asked, somehow beside her. 

She ignored him, keeping her eyes on her target. Several armed men were loading large crates onto a truck. And a small girl with an umbrella. Black somehow felt she was the most dangerous--she'd seen her somewhere, right? Right? Maybe just walking down the street or something? 

Working with terrorist Roman Torchwick? Working with the White Fang? Working with...with...?

She frowned. Motion. Something was going on...

"You'd probably know fairly quickly if you went down there and asked," Adam said, leaning beside her. 

"They're criminals; they're not likely to answer many questions," Black answered. She kicked herself--talking to a hallucination was not going to solve anything. 

"A lot of people who have swords at their throats tend to find themselves more talkative than they thought they'd be," Adam told her. 

Black glared at him. 

"I meant actual swords, not mean looks," Adam told her. 

Black scoffed. She looked over to the group of bandits. Umbrella Girl was walking around, snapping orders. Something was definitely going on. She leaned forward. Part of her worried about stepping outside her cover, but she quickly suppressed the worry. Never let anyone see you cry. With as much trouble going on as Red thought there was, no one else in RWBY could afford to spend any more time trying to help Black. Despite repeatedly asking them to stop, to just focus on the work they were doing, none of them listened. 

Didn't they know that Black had wanted to help everyone, too? Didn't they know that the plan needed to be done carefully, so it didn't fail? They needed to focus! Not on Black and her troubles, but on the task at hand! They...

_Crack. _

Black pulled back into the tree as the branch she had been leaning on tumbled to the forest floor. The work stopped. Umbrella Girl stopped shouting. Guns were drawn. Someone walked over to the tree, examining the branch, pointing a gun at it. 

_You know what? Fuck subtlety. _

Black dropped to the ground, her sword drawn, and skewered the armed thug. He dropped, dead. Black used her Semblance to propel herself to the side, evading the shower of gunfire. She converted Gambol Shroud to a pistol, firing. The humans in this world did go down easy--one bullet was all that was necessary. Back on Remnant, students fired guns at each other in the tournament. Part of her felt guilty for killing the thugs--but civil war would kill a lot of people. Whether these people knew their boss' endgame or not, they couldn't be allowed to finish. 

"SHIT!" cried Umbrella Girl. "You! But you're supposed to be..." She stumbled back, pointing her umbrella at Black. She was with Torchwick, Black realized. 

"Ah, she showed up after the White Fang's rally," Adam said from beside her. Black jumped behind a tree, bullets being fired around her. 

_Does she remember me? No, she's from this world. _

"Never assume anything about your enemy," Adam said. "If she remembers you, then she is probably a demon." He peaked around the tree. "Just like that big guy there."

Part of Black wondered how her subconscious knew a demon was there. The rest of her was saying, _Who cares? Move!_

She leapt aside, and a sword sliced the top half of the tree off. The demon stood slightly taller than her, covered from shoulders to toes in a dark robe. A cloak was wrapped over one shoulder, covering one arm in a sleeve and its head in a hood, with only one glowing violet eye visible beneath the hood. Multiple silver swords floated right behind it in a circle. It held a sword loosely in its left hand--which was a dark purple, and appeared to be skinless. The circle of blades rotated, and it reached its right(and bigger) hand behind it, selecting a sword slightly larger than the rest. A purple tentacle reached out from the sleeve and grasped the sword hilt. 

"Yes! Get her, Swordsman!" Umbrella Girl cried, pointing at Black. Black ignored her, stepping back from her opponent. The demon lifted up both its swords, then stepped forward. There was no hurried step, no rush. Except when it swung. Black evaded the attack with her Semblance, then stepped leapt back again as it attacked again. She ran back from it, firing bullets. With a few swings of its swords, the bullets were deflected. 

Yet it didn't hurry its walk...

Gears of thought were ticking in Black's head. The Swordsman stopped ten feet from her, watching her carefully. Black's sword was out. The thing was fast--but, if she had to guess, only with its reflexes. If it could run as fast as it could swing its sword, she wouldn't have been able to back away like she had. 

But she couldn't shoot it--she had to engage it in close quarters. With a sigh, she rushed forward, attacking with Gambol Shroud. The Swordsman parried the sword thrust and attacked with its other sword. Black ducked beneath the blow, stabbing at its chest, but it moved its sword in front of hers. She stepped aside as it brought one sword down on where she'd been standing, then slashed at its side. The sword pierce the robe, and she felt a thick _resistance _from inside. She pulled her sword out and rolled away from another attack. A thin trail of black smoke crept from the cut. 

She barely managed to evade a sudden stab as the Swordsman spun and attacked. She leaned aside, dodging yet another attack. Then it kicked her, and she was thrown backwards. She bounced off the cobbled forest path, which shattered beneath her, and hit a tree, which cracked. 

Along with a rib or two. Pain flared through her stomach, up through her chest, and she gasped. She looked up as the Swordsman advanced. The ribs would heal--relatively quickly, given her past experiences. But she still needed to avoid dying. She needed a plan of escape. 

"Running away, yet again?" Adam scoffed. "Really, Black. Since when does that change anything?"

Black spun and snarled at him. Just as quickly, she turned to the Swordsman, which swung its sword down at her. A metallic ringing filled the air around her, as something leapt in front of her, blocking the sword. The Swordsman stepped backwards, holding up both its swords. Red looked down at Black. 

"Thanks," Black said, taking Red's outstretched hand. She winced, pain spiking up her side, but stood up straight. 

"Do we need to take this thing on right now?" Red asked. 

"Not really," Black said. 

"Then let's go," Red said. "These guys can wait. White and Yellow are already in the capital by now."

Black nodded. Red took her hand, and picked her up. The Swordsman watched them. 

Red held up her middle finger, then burst into a run, rose petals filling the air around them. 


	15. Ruby Rose

"Jaune! Jaune! Jaune! Hey! Jaune! Ja-aune! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

"What is it, Ruby?" Jaune interrupted with a sigh. "I'm kinda on duty, right now." He folded his arms over his chest. Like he always did, when she repeatedly said his name. 

"Do you know where White is?" Ruby asked. "Weiss wanted to talk to her." Behind her, Weiss blushed, rubbing one arm with her other. 

"Um...Yellow and Summer are having tea together, but...hmm...try asking Tai. He probably knows where she is." He added, under his breath, probably thinking Ruby wouldn't hear, "At the very least, she'd have asked him where he stored the liquor."

"I'll ask him, then!" Ruby grabbed Weiss's hand and flashed her an encouraging smile. Weiss smiled back, but was still troubled. 

They'd first found Weiss in a smashed car by the side of the road, the car still on fire. Seven year old Weiss sat in there, with no memories of her life. The weirder part was that her parents were nowhere to be found--not even corpses. But White...surely White had memories of her family. Weiss had asked Ruby if they could talk to White about it. 

Ruby lead Weiss past a sitting room--where, sure enough, Summer and Yellow were sipping tea together and up to Tai's office. Ruby stood in the doorway, impatiently rocking back and forth on her heels. Tai looked up from the computer, then looked back. "I'm busy, Ruby. Do you need something?"

"Do you know where White is?" Ruby asked. "Weiss wanted to talk to her. Y'know, bout family and stuff?"

Tai frowned, then said, "Oh. I see. Probably should have thought of that sooner." He laughed, running a hand through his hair. "She's in the guest room. Now'd be the time--she's in a good mood."

"Alright. Thanks!" Ruby gave another encouraging smile to Weiss. "Nervous?" she asked, beginning to lead Weiss on again. 

"More than a little," Weiss replied. She seldom spoke--a shame, considering her beautiful voice. Ruby had once suggested she take up singing. Weiss rejected the notion. She rubbed her spare hand through her long hair. "I mean--stuff I've been trying to figure out for years--could finally be revealed. I...what if, after I hear it, I end up wishing I hadn't heard it?"

"Maybe you should focus on actually finding out the story, first?" Ruby suggested. 

"...a good idea," Weiss agreed, after a moment's pause. 

"Weiss, Weiss, Weiss...I'm full of a lot of good ideas!"

"Not the only thing you're full of," Weiss said flatly. 

Ruby put her spare hand on her chest in mock horror. "Oh! My heart! Why doth thou woundeth-eth me so? Eth?" They shared a good laugh--Weiss' crisp, quiet laugh, Ruby's confident, loud laugh. They smiled at each other. Then Ruby kissed Weiss on the cheek. "Ready?" She nodded to the door. 

Weiss took a deep breath, then nodded. Ruby reached up and knocked on the door. She paused a minute, then knocked on the door again. 

"Come in," a voice called out. Ruby opened the door, suddenly smelling beer. But the floor was not covered in empty beer bottles, like when her uncle got drunk that one time, so she took it as a good sign. 

White was sitting in a plush chair, staring out the window, a glass bottle in her hand telling Ruby where the smell was coming from. She looked up at the two as they entered. "Oh! Hello. Is there...something you needed?"

"Weiss?" Ruby said, looking at her friend. Weiss took a deep breath. "Well...I just...um...I wanted to...ask...uh..."

White took a deep breath. "It's okay. You can ask."

"I want to know about my family."

White paused a minute. "Please clarify. I don't know what you mean."

"I was found in a wrecked car," Weiss explained. "No sign of my parents anywhere, no memory of where I came from. I only remember my name...and being told to wait."

"So...you want to know about the family you didn't have," White said. She took a large sip of her beer, then said, "Oh, boy."

"Is that a good 'oh boy'?" Ruby asked hopefully. 

"Nope," White said. "If they're anything like the Schnee family from my world, you're not missing out on much."

Weiss sat there. "Can...I hear about them?"

White sighed. "I...I normally don't think back much on my home. Too many...bad memories, especially for a place I can't go back to." She paused. "Dad was...he waited almost twenty years to tell my mother that he only married her for her money and family status." She took another sip of beer. "On my birthday."

"What the...oh my God, are you serious?" Weiss stared flatly at White, who nodded. 

"On your birthday?" Ruby asked. _What is wrong with him? _

"Yeah. After that, Mom..." White stared at her beer bottle, then laughed. "Oh my gods, I'm like her now, aren't I?" She laughed, leaning her head back against her chair, eyes closed. "Drunk and troubled."

"Um..." Ruby shared a look with Weiss. "Do you need help?" Ruby asked. 

"Yes, but no help you can give me." White sat back up and looked at them, smiling. "Let's see...there's Winter, my big sis, and...Whitley. He...takes after his father." She chuckled. "Ah. Winter was the best role model I could have asked for. Certainly better than Red's uncle."

"What about Uncle Qrow?" Ruby said defensively. She liked her uncle, and didn't like hearing people talk about him like that. 

"Not Qrow from this world, from my world," White said. "He was..." She looked at the beer bottle again. "Shit. I can't really blast him for being a drunkard anymore. But whatever Red tells you, his fight with Winter ended in a draw, at best."

"Uncle Qrow can fight?" Ruby asked. She hadn't expected that. And evidently, her uncle hadn't, either. 

"A fighter?" Uncle Qrow said, leaning against the door frame. "That's a surprise. I'm not much of a battle person myself." He brushed an imaginary piece of dirt of his shoulder. 

White stood up. "Didn't see you there."

"I was walking past, heard chit-chat," he said with a laugh. He had a quiet, but confident laugh. Ruby had not yet figured out how he spoke so quietly, yet had everyone listening to him. He looked through the guest room. "Also, I figured you might know where Summer went."

"Mom's right down the hallway," Ruby said. "Talking to Yellow over tea."

White sat down. Qrow flashed an odd look her direction, and when Ruby looked her way, a troubled look had settled over her. "Is something wrong?" Ruby asked. 

"No," White lied quickly. 

Why did everyone lie to Ruby when something was going on? Surely the truth couldn't hurt any worse than the lies. Just as she was about to call her out on the lie, a low rumbling filled the air. White jumped to her feet, looking out the window. "What is that?" she asked. 

Ruby leapt up beside her, all other thoughts gone. "Hey! It's the _Ixion_!" 

"The what?" White asked, looking at her. 

"Roman's massive, city-sized airship, containing a fully armed garrison, and fully capable of capturing and containing large renegade demons!" Ruby said, excited. 

"...specifics?" White asked. 

"It's a mobile fortress," Weiss explained. "Containing roughly twenty-thousand people, both armed combatants and civilians. It is fully self-sufficient, capable of farming its own food, and performing maintenance mid-flight. It lands about once a decade, just to make sure. Its main purpose is being able to capture, contain, and transport large and volatile demons."

"Thank you." She looked at it. "Wait. Roman? Roman Torchwick?"

"Yeah, he's a hero!" Ruby said. "Expert general and demon slayer!" She jumped into the middle of the floor, entering a fighting stance, wielding an imaginary sword. "He's saved hundreds of people!"

"What was he in your world?" Qrow asked. 

"...not a hero."

"He's also Raven's boyfriend," Ruby added. 

White looked at her. "Is that a joke?"

"What are you talking about? Why would it be a joke?"

White drained the last of her beer. "Oh, boy."


	16. Summer Rose

Summer walked out onto the roof, watching the _Ixion _hover overhead. It was roughly the size of a city, and always made her nervous. Yellow stepped up beside her, shielding her eyes from the sun. "Whoa. What's that?"

"The _Ixion._ Giant, mobile prison, capable of holding demons." She looked at Yellow's blank expression and added, "Big ass ship."

"Oh," Yellow said with a nod. Summer looked back up at the _Ixion. _Roman Torchwick was an interesting person, to say the least. Summer felt like he was a good person, but not one she particularly enjoyed talking to. Especially since he was parking his city-sized prison right above her house. 

But Raven liked him, so Summer didn't feel like complaining too much about it. 

A small jet detached itself from the massive fortress and flew on down. "Roman's in charge of that thing?" a new voice asked. White stepped out onto the roof, followed by Ruby and Weiss. 

"Roman? Roman Torchwick?" Yellow asked. 

"What is he in your world?" Summer asked curiously. 

"Terrorist," Yellow replied. 

"Seriously?" Summer asked, looking at her. Yellow nodded. "I mean, I don't exactly like the guy, but...Jesus Christ." She shook her head. "A terrorist." She chuckled. The jet landed on the roof. "Wow." 

Striding out of the jet was Roman Torchwick, wearing his stylized white overcoat and bowler hat, cane tapping against the gangway. Following behind him was a small girl with pink and brown hair--Neo Politan, if Summer remembered her name properly. The Raven stepped out of the jet. Summer was surprised, and she felt it showed. 

"Morning," she called out, walking over to meet them. 

Roman gave Raven a look, then looked over at Summer. "Nice to meet you, your majesty."

Summer frowned. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Raven looked at Summer. "I...I..."

A sinking feeling settled over Summer. "Where's Pyrrha?" she asked, half needing to know, half not wanting to know. 

"I couldn't protect her," Raven whispered, collapsing to her knees. "I couldn't save her."

Summer felt like she'd been slapped. 

"What's going on?" Ruby asked, coming over. "Oh! Raven! You're back!" She stopped, seeing Raven's face. "Hey--what's wrong? Where's Pyrrha?" She looked around. "Where is Pyrrha?" 

"Kid..." Roman took off his hat. "Sometimes...you can't save everyone."

"What are you talking about? Where is Pyrrha?" Ruby turned to Raven. "Where is she? She's on the ship, right?"

Raven looked at Ruby with a tear-streaked face. Ruby stood there a long moment, then collapsed. "No...no..." Summer put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. Ruby looked up at her mother. Summer looked at Raven. "Who."

"I...didn't see. We got separated in a fight against the Amalgam, and...I found..." Raven choked back a sob. She was struggling. Raven didn't cry easy. 

"We...are going to find who did this," Summer said, sitting down beside Ruby and Raven. "And make. Them. _Pay._"

Someone had attacked Summer's family. Someone had sent her a message. The message had been received. 

It was about time to send a reply. 

Breaking the news to the rest of the children was difficult. They all handled grief their own way, and Summer wasn't sure how to comfort them. Roman, however, had had experience with grieving people before, meaning, for once, Summer was glad of his presence. He helped everyone along. He helped comfort everyone. But life didn't slow down for grief--people needed to eat, and Summer made it a point to at least help cook the food, when she was home. Raven helped--she seemed to be feeling better. Or at least, she wasn't feeling worse. 

Raven was chopping vegetables, with Summer washing them. With all the fighting and working her hands did, it was often nice to do the simple, repetitive task of washing potatoes, listening to the rhythmic thud of the knife against the cutting board. 

"You're back, then," Yellow said from behind them. Summer cast a glance over her shoulder at her--she was leaning against a wall, eyes focused out the window. 

"Yes, yes I am," Raven said flatly. 

"...we saw the cottage."

Raven stopped. A flicker of surprise flashed through her eyes. Summer wanted to ask, "What cottage?", but held her tongue. "...And you thought now was the best time to bring it up," Raven said flatly. _Bitterly. _

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Yellow said. "I figured...I ought to tell you."

Raven cast a glance at Summer, who had continued washing vegetables. She tried to hide her curiosity, but, evidently, she failed. 

"It was a place where bad things were done by worse people," Raven told her. "I never really felt like talking about."

One day, Summer decided, she'd visit Cottontail Wood. 

Yellow had a troubled look over her face. "That's where...the Amalgam was summoned, right?" 

Raven cried out in pain, clutching her finger. She'd accidentally cut herself. "Here, let me--"

"It's fine," Raven interrupted. She washed off the cut, then stepped over to a cabinet and pulled out bandages. She wrapped one around her cut finger. 

"Sorry," Yellow said. "I...shouldn't have brought it up."

" 'Never apologize for asking difficult questions,' " Raven muttered. "Tai once told me that." She looked at Yellow. "Yeah. That's where it was summoned." She sniffed. "Ah, dammit, I'm crying." She wiped the single tear from her eye. She turned back to the cutting board and continued her job. 

Summer wondered if a simple task like cooking helped Raven, too. From all she'd heard, Raven could use some help. 


	17. Coco Adel

Coco understood grief. If someone died, you mourned them. But regardless of who died, you still had to do your frikkin' job. As a personal student of Roman Torchwick, she, Coco Adel, was supposed to talk to the head of security in the Summer Home, Jaune Arc. But Jaune was holed up in his room, refusing to come out. Coco stood outside the door, hands on her hips, glaring at the thin, wooden door in front of her. 

"Leave him be," Velvet said, forever the voice of reason. She put a hand on Coco's shoulder. "He's grieving."

"That's no excuse," Coco muttered, turning away from the door. 

"Yeah, it kinda is," Velvet said. She punched Coco's shoulder, thankfully with her non-gloved hand. "C'mon. Let's go find Roman."

As they walked down the hallway, the demon White strode in and began walking down the hallway. Coco didn't pay her any mind--until she bumped right into Velvet. 

"You okay?" Coco asked, catching Velvet. Velvet nodded, then looked at the demon.

White had a stunned, surprised look on her face as she looked Velvet up and down, her eyes settling on the gloved hand. She looked at Velvet curiously, then said, "Sorry. Didn't...I should have watched where I was going." She looked again at Velvet's glove, then stood up, dusted herself off, and continued walking. 

"What was that about?" Coco asked. 

Velvet grabbed her gloved hand. "I..."

Velvet's hand was a closely guarded secret--only she, Velvet herself, and Roman knew. And now, if Coco had to guess, the demon known as White. She glared after the retreating demon. "I don't like her," Coco decided. 

"You don't like a lot of people," Velvet said snappily. She was cute when she got mad. Coco helped her to her feet. "_Now _let's go talk to Torchwick."

Roman Torchwick was currently staying in one of the many, many guest rooms. Coco had long ago decided that this house had too many guest rooms. She knocked politely on Roman's door. 

"Come in," Roman called from inside. Coco opened the door and immediately saw White sitting there, on a couch, across from Roman. Roman had a tired, haggard look--his hat was seated on the couch next to him, and he was drinking coffee from a thermos. White took a sip from a hip flask full of...

Coco had seen a lot of demons, but duplicates were often confusing when it came to personalities. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was that White was drinking. 

"Have you been introduced?" Roman asked, nodding to White. "I understand you...'met' in the hallway."

Coco glared at White. 

"Um...hi. My name's...Velvet..." Velvet wasn't normally so quiet. 

"Velvet Scarlatina and Coco Adel," White said. She took a sip from her flask. 

"How do you know our names?" Coco demanded. 

"I'm from another world--I met the version of you in my world," White explained with a chuckle. "Sorry if I caused you worry with that."

Coco decided to let her off with a warning growl. White didn't seem to care, which made Coco suspicious. 

"You actually picked a perfect time to come in," White said. "Roman was just explaining your arm, Velvet." Coco pulled out a sword and put it up to White's throat. 

"She's a friend, Coco," Roman said with a sigh. "And your sword wouldn't hurt a duplicate. Auras, remember?"

Coco reluctantly sheathed her sword. 

"Take a seat, please," Roman encouraged. Velvet sat. Coco glared suspiciously at White, closed the door, then sat down right beside Velvet. 

"I understand you're being protective," White said. "She is your teammate, and these are...troubled times." She looked troubled, then took another sip from her hip flask. "But when I accidentally bumped into you, I sensed Aura, which only demon duplicates have. So, naturally, came to ask Roman here about it, just to make sure nothing...too bad...was going on."

"That's logical," Velvet agreed. Coco put a protective hand over her shoulder. 

"So...you're part demon?"

Velvet nodded. 

"Forgive me, I'm feeling particularly tired today," Roman interrupted. "Would you two like tea, or coffee or something?"

"Coffee," Coco replied. Velvet nodded. "Me, too."

"Good, because I don't even own any tea," Roman replied. He got out two cups, and then began pouring coffee from a pitcher. "Don't know why I offered it."

"I am curious as to how the whole 'demon hand' thing happened," White asked. "I'd like to hear the story, though I understand if it brings in painful memories."

"I was two, so, no, there aren't really any painful memories," Velvet replied. "My parents...tried summoning a duplicate of me. Did a poor job. Not that it doesn't come in handy--super-strength and an indestructible hand are pretty helpful." She hesitated, then pulled off the glove, slowly. Coco shuddered. The hand was black, with white spikes of bone sticking out of it, and the hand ended in five clawed fingers. Coco didn't believe Velvet when she said it didn't hurt. 

White grabbed Velvet's hand. Coco tensed, but White appeared to only want a closer look. "Hmm. Looks Grimm." She frowned. "I take it they did a really bad job with it, then, if it came out like this." She let go of Velvet's hand. "If I had to guess, they were using you as part of the summoning spell? To grab a specific demon?"

Treating humans like ingredients. The thought made Coco sick, but Velvet just nodded. "Yeah. Dunno what they wanted with an indestructible toddler, but, here we are."

White frowned. "I've seen some other demons that weren't summoned properly. You were pretty lucky."

"I guess I was," Velvet said. 

"We, uh, came in to say that we couldn't go over everything with Jaune, sir," Coco interrupted, looking to Roman. 

He waved her off, downing a large sip of coffee. "Forget it. I've been here plenty, it's perfectly safe. And as for protocol, it can jump off the _Ixion, _for all I care right now."

Coco felt a twinge of irritation running through her, but didn't say anything. Instead, she turned to White. "I hope you don't mind if I ask a question?"

"Depends on the question." White took a sip from her flask, then frowned when nothing came out. She looked into the empty bottle, then pocketed it. 

"How did you get the scar?" Coco asked. Weiss had no scar--Coco wasn't friends with any of the royals, but Roman visited them enough so she saw them regularly. So she'd been curious when she saw White's scar. 

White, however, laughed. "That's an easy one. Took a blow from a Grimm, back in my world. Left a scar." She traced a finger along the scar. "It happened a long time ago."

Coco had expected a long, elaborate story. She was disappointed. 

White rose, stretching. "Thanks for the conversation, and sorry again for the collision," she said. "I'm off now."

"Have a nice day," Roman called out. He looked over at Coco and Velvet. "What were you here for again?"

"Jaune wasn't feeling up for the--" Velvet began, but Roman interrupted her with a wave. "Ah, yes, yes. Forget it. We're in a big city--go off and have some fun." He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. "I'm tired. And this damn business with...with..." He let loose a frustrated sigh. "Someone summoned a shit ton of demons, and set them loose on a town. Pretty soon, you won't have any time for fun." He opened one eye. "Seriously. Aren't you two, like, a couple or something?"

"No! I'm straight!" Coco said, standing up, blushing. 

Velvet gave a noncommittal shrug. Roman rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I need to sleep. Neo?"

The pink-and-brown haired girl leapt up from behind his chair. "Yes, Roman?"

"Put this up," Roman said, handing the thermos to her. Neo grabbed it and scurried away, putting it on a shelf before quickly hurrying back. 

Coco, still blushing and fully aware of how little she was in control of her emotions, walked out the door, Velvet behind her. "Hey, Coco! Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

"Uh--no. We're still on duty, aren't we?" Coco said. 

"Yeah, but Roman--didn't he just give us the day off?" Velvet countered. 

"I don't really...whatever he said, it doesn't feel right. If things are heating up...politically...isn't that a reason for us to work more?"

Velvet didn't answer. Politically was the one way she and Coco disagreed. Coco bit her lip. Velvet was a strong supporter of the queen--Coco felt like she was a tyrant. She had powers granted by God, and she _squandered _them. Using them to light candles, cook unpopped popcorn. 

Coco _hated _Summer Rose. Velvet didn't. It made things awkward at times. 

But Coco was Velvet's friend. She didn't like things being awkward. "Ah, fuck it, let's get a burger," she said, straightening her sunglasses. 

"Really?"

"I didn't just say yes to a date, did I?"

"Ah, no." Velvet chuckled. "I like you, but as a friend."

Coco smiled. "That's how I like you, too."

"Ah, you have feelings," Velvet said with an impish giggle. Coco glared at her, then laughed. They rode the elevator down to the bottom floor, and walked straight out the massive double doors in front of the Summer Home. Coco looked to the side to see a young man in a long, dark green coat sitting by a statue, engrossed in a book. "Do they really just let anyone come up and sit on their steps?" Coco asked Velvet. She thought she'd been quiet, but the man said dryly, "It is a time of peace, and the Queen holds the divine might of God Almighty. At this point, the bodyguards are a formality."

"Actually, I kinda get that," Velvet said with a chuckle. 

The man turned the page in his book. A dark book, with, Coco noted, no title or author. Something unsettled her about it. The man looked at her, then returned his gaze to his book. "My name is Oscar Pine."

"Uh, Coco Adel," Coco replied. "Must be some book, huh?"

"Yes. It is." Oscar didn't look up from his book. 

"O-kay," Coco said, rubbing her head. 

Oscar closed the book, pocketing it. He looked up and off to the side. Coco followed his gaze, and saw two figures coming up the road. One in a red cloak and black dress, the other in a black-and-white shirt and pants. 

The Crimson Reaver...and her friend. Black, if Coco remembered correctly. 

"Coco," the Reaver said, looking at her. With one eye--the other was covered by the strange face plate she wore. 

"Uh--hi?" 

"Do you know if Yellow and White have arrived?" she asked. 

"They're inside." Coco gulped. The Crimson Reaver had only appeared six months ago, but was already a legend. Unlike the Queen, she used the power of her silver eyes to fight for everyone. 

She was a hero. Every bit of her, the hero Coco wished she was. 

"Ah, good, because I am tired of walking," the Reaver said with a sigh. She stepped around Coco, rose petals trailing the air around her. Coco stared after the Reaver. 

"...Wow. That's twice I've seen her." Coco rubbed her air. "Dammit, I should have asked for an autograph."

"The hell would she even sign?" Black muttered, stepping around Coco. "Your shades?" She scoffed as she walked up the steps. 

"...so...burger now?" Coco suggested. 

"Yeah," Velvet said. 

"Oh. Nice meeting you..." Coco turned around. The man, Oscar, was gone. Coco shrugged it off and continued walking. 


	18. Red

Her head ached. She strode through the mostly empty halls, past a few guards who said nothing. She needed some sleep, to lie down. Black followed her, always a couple of steps behind, ready to help if needed. Red breathed in and out as she walked. 

Her eye hurt.

She entered the living room. She'd been aiming for the guest rooms--she'd gotten herself turned around. She bit her lip, walking through the empty living room. It appeared to be messier than she'd last seen it. Red reached over and picked a photo up off a table, from where it sat face-down. A picture of happy, smiling Raven team JNPR--Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren. Warm memories flooded her--memories of her home. Of a quick joke there. Long conversations there. A food fight there. She smiled, but it didn't last long. A place she could never go back to. She put the photo back down, the way she'd found it, and sniffed the air. Someone was cooking. Red looked up, seeing into the dining room, where everyone was sitting down with a pot of soup. No one seemed happy with it. 

And it appeared that not everyone was there. Red knocked politely on the wall, leaning against the door frame. Everyone looked at her. 

"Red!" Yellow cried, standing up. "You're here!"

"Black's with me," Red said. Black stepped into the room, sniffing. "Smells good."

"Would you like some?" Summer offered. "There's extra."

Red looked over everyone's sullen faces--or, in Raven's case, sitting there, not doing anything. She looked at the empty chair as she walked into the room. 

"Where's Pyrrha?" she asked. 

No one answered. Summer flinched. Which was answer enough. 

Should it have surprised Red that someone she knew had died? Then again, she didn't know Pyrrha--she knew Pyrrha from her home. She didn't know this Pyrrha. Red walked around the table, over to the window. The massive ship was still there--the _Ixion, _if she remembered correctly. Massive flying city. Roman Torchwick was technically in charge, but he presumably had other people handling the politics. The book she'd read hadn't said so, but she took a guess. 

She looked back at the table. Everyone was still staring at her. Black had fixed herself a bowl and had took a seat in a chair off to the side, but looked away when Red looked at her. "What?" Red asked. 

"Uh...it's been awhile?" Summer said. "How...how have you been?"

_Horrible. _"Good enough."

"The face-plate is new," Raven commented. Yellow started immediately coughing and choking on her soup. Black looked from Raven to Red in alarm. White muttered a quiet, "Oh, shit."

Vivid memories of pain danced across Red's mind. The searing, constant, unbearable pain. People crying out in shock and fear. Finally, a way to end it. With nothing but a small knife...

"It is new," Red said stiffly. Raven looked from Red to Yellow and back again. Red walked past her. "I'm going to go lie down," she said. She left the room, then leaned against a wall. She shuddered, breathing in and out deeply, then took the face-plate off. She stared at her reflection. One single eye looked back at her. Apparently, silver eyes meant you had magic powers. That was why Summer had managed to hold onto the throne for so long--because she had innate magical powers that supposedly came from God. 

But Red also had silver eyes, and was a demon. So when holy power manifested itself in her, it _hurt. _

At least, when she'd had two eyes. The memories of taking the knife and stabbing her eye...everyone else was freaking out. She was finally happy. Happy the pain had stopped. 

Mostly. She reached up and felt her face, feeling the scars covering the missing eye. Her eyelid was shut. She took a few deep breaths, then looked carefully at her reflection. She looked up at Ruby, standing there with a bowl of soup, looking freaked out. "Uh...I thought you...might be hungry..." She gulped. Red put the metal mask back over her face. It only covered half her face--and most people assumed she still had an eye beneath it. 

"Thanks," Red said, taking the bowl. 

"That...looked like it hurts."

"Only sometimes." The lie was small and simple, but it seemed to comfort Ruby nonetheless. Red gave her a comforting smile. Ruby smiled back, almost shyly, then walked back into the dining room. 

Red took a bite of the soup. It was good--potatoes, veggies, sausage. She ate her fill, then set the bowl down on a nearby table and walked on. This time she found the guest rooms. She opened the door to the one they'd stayed in last time. It was just like she'd left it. The covers, undone. Several miscellaneous drawers open. The weird religious portrait--turned around, so she couldn't see it. She smiled as she walked into the room. A nice place, the Summer Home. Pretty soon, things were going to be bad. But now things were nice, and Red decided she wanted to enjoy that. 

But first, she was tired. Tired people liked sleep. So she lay down, taking off the mask and putting it on the dresser beside her. She pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and fell asleep. 

When she awoke, everything was quiet. She opened her eye groggily. It was night outside--the first of the moons was up in the sky, and she really wished she could remember their names. She sat up, stretching, then looked around the room. Yellow and Black were playing a game of chess--without talking, evidently. She looked at the other bed that sat in the room. White was sleeping peacefully on it. Red looked back to Yellow, who gave her a thumbs up. Then Black moved a bishop. Yellow glared a the chess board a long time before sighing and knocking over her king. One hand still holding her book, Black began setting up her side of the board for another game. Red got up, walked over and took a seat beside them on a nearby couch. 

"How are you holding up?" Yellow whispered. 

Red looked at the sleeping White, then whispered back, "Poorly. My eye's been hurting a lot here lately--ever since I created that forcefield." Divine powers were way too easy to use, Red decided. 

"Sorry. You need anything?" Yellow moved a knight over the pawns. 

"Nothing you can give me," Red said with an apologetic smile. 

Yellow smiled sadly at her, moving another chess piece. "Sorry I can't do any more for you." They all had their problems--Black was hallucinating, White was a drunkard, and Red was in constant pain. Yellow held on, trying desperately to comfort all of them. But mostly failing. There was very little she could do, but what she could do was be there for everyone. And she never failed at doing that. 

"Yellow, you don't need to do anything more," Red said, giving Yellow a big hug. 


	19. Pyrrha Nikos

The first thing Pyrrha did upon waking was to make sure she wasn't dead. She wasn't. Which was a surprise. The next thing she noticed was that she was in a featureless grey room. She blinked, confused. 

Something very strange was going on. She sat up, realizing she'd been laying down on a large slab of stone. She got up and walked around the room. It had no door. For a second, she became worried about lack of air, then noticed a vent in the ceiling. Positioned where she couldn't go through it. "Hello?" she called out. She'd gotten separated from Raven, and then...

She remembered her attacker. The tall, black-clad armored figure with the gun. Knocked her out. 

"Hello?" she called out again. "Is anyone there?"

No answer. She paced around the edge of the room, knocking on the walls. She didn't have her spear with her--and she was beginning to get hungry. "Please? Anyone?"

Still, no answer. She sighed, slumping against the wall. She sat like that for a long time before a series of glowing red runes appeared in the center of the room. A young man in a dark green coat, holding a fashionable cane, appeared. He looked around the room before his eyes settled on Pyrrha. "Ah. There you are."

Pyrrha jumped up. "Who are you? Where am I?"

"Relax. If we had any wish to harm you, we would have done so quite some time ago." He chuckled. "Our name is Oscar Pine. You are...Pyrrha Nikos, if we're not mistaken?"

"Our?" Pyrrha said with a raised eyebrow. Oscar...the name was familiar. She remembered...the Amalgam mentioned an "Oscar" during the fight. "Are you...the one responsible for Arvinum?"

Oscar looked surprised. "Ah, yes. The Amalgam's famously loose tongue. What all did she tell you?"

Pyrrha glared at him. 

"We know she mentioned something about Raven, and a certain cottage in Cottontail Woods," Oscar went on. "Would you be inclined...to explain what all she said?"

Pyrrha continued glaring. 

"Miss Nikos, if looks could kill, we'd have died long ago," Oscar stated. 

"Why do you refer to yourself as 'we'?" Pyrrha asked. 

"Are you trying to bargain with us?" Oscar asked, sounding amused. "You do not know where you are. You do not know how to get anywhere, and you are locked in a room only accessible by a teleportation spell only we can cast. And you are trying to bargain with us?"

Pyrrha was about to answer, but Oscar interrupted her with a mad laugh. "Alright then, how's this? We both ask a question, and answer each other's questions. Sound fair to you?"

It was too fair. Pyrrha felt like there was a double edge somewhere, but she didn't really have a choice. "Yeah."

"You first." He was smiling. 

Pyrrha knew she had to make it count. But there was very little she could actually ask... "Why do you refer to yourself as we?"

"You had to pick the hardest one for us to answer, didn't you?" Oscar said, giving her a flat stare. "There are two souls in our body--one is a human soul, the other is a demon soul. We both have to share a body. That is why we say 'we'--the both of us. Now, our turn. What all did the Amalgam tell you?"

Pyrrha thought over the battle they had. "Not much. It...mentioned your name. And...it said...what Raven did..."

"Nothing else?" Oscar said with a frown. "Huh. Better than expected."

"Now, my--"

"Actually, that was all the questions I needed answered," Oscar interrupted. "Thank you for your time."

Pyrrha looked at him in alarm. "What are you going to do?"

"Shh...go back to sleep," he said, holding up one hand. A red circle appeared around his wrist, with many runes around it. Then, Pyrrha fell asleep. 


	20. Blake Belladonna

Blake felt numb as she passed over the books on the shelf. She'd never lost anyone like this before. Her parents left her when she was young, left her in the care of an orphanage. "They must have had their reasons," everyone had told her. "Surely they'd have kept you if they could have taken care of you." But if they couldn't take care of her, why had they had her in the first place?

A lot of complicated emotions battled inside her. She touched one book. A favorite of hers--she'd read it many times. But...now was not the time. It was a dark story. She didn't want something dark. She wanted something nice and cute and fluffy. She moved along. Another one of her favorites--a romance. But it had a sad ending. She continued walking, finding all her favorite books on their same old familiar places. But none of them were right for her right now. As she passed over each of them, she thought, _Why don't I ever read happy books?_

Blake could have picked up a happy book anytime. But no, she picked up the dark ones--horror stories, sad romances, fantasy books with dark twists. Right at that moment, she felt like crying. She rubbed a frustrated hand through her hair, then felt the bow she wore. Yang had given it to her, a while back. A gift. Her life was pretty grim--but it had some nice moments, too. She took a deep calming breath, then looked over and found a book she'd never read before. _Home Away from Home _read the title. By someone called Sylvia. She didn't look at the reviews posted on the back, the newspaper quotes on the cover, or the text on the inside cover. She pulled out a chair in her old reading table and sat down with her book. 

She tended to get lost while reading books. Lose track of time. She rarely knew how much time had passed--she never checked the time before reading, and it rarely felt like over thirty minutes. That was how the best books worked. She would sit and read until someone bothered her. Ren knew enough not to bother her while she read. Few other people ever came into the library, and she never noticed them. 

It was a happy book. With some sad parts, but some happy parts. As she closed the book, she let out a calming breath. Then she checked the page number on the last page. With a start, she realized she'd sat and read _seven hundred pages. _"How long was I reading?" she asked Ren. 

Ren jumped to his feet. "Huh? Whuh? I'm awake!" He looked at Blake. "Uh...what did you ask?"

"What time is it?" Blake asked. Ren checked his watch. "Three in the afternoon."

Blake sat up. "Sorry for the inconvenience. It was...a good book." She returned the book back to its location on the shelf. The Sylvia woman was a good author, Blake decided. She'd have to find out what else she wrote--no other books by her sat by _Home Away from Home _on the shelf. Then she noticed the figure. 

Other people were allowed in the library, but something was distinctly _off _about this one. She stood about Blake's own height, but wore a pitch-black breastplate. A red mini-skirt was tied around her waist, and she wore knee-length metal boots. She wore gauntlets up to her elbows, and had a shock of red hair falling down to her waist. Her back was to Blake. 

Blake flinched. Regardless of how odd it was to be roaming around in steel armor, she should still have been quiet--it was, after all, a library. 

The woman turned around. Blake suddenly found herself staring directly at Pyrrha. "Ah. You're done with your book. Any idea where your adopted siblings are?" she asked, casually. 

"How...what...what the hell?" Blake cried, stumbling backwards. She reflexively pulled out the sword Raven made her carry everywhere. Ren had out his dual pistols and both were trained on Pyrrha--but they were shaking so much, Blake doubted he could hit her if he tried. 

"Don't act so surprised, there's more than one duplicate out in the world," Pyrrha said with an eye-roll. 

"Are...are you a duplicate?" Blake asked, pointing her sword at her. 

"...didn't...didn't I just say that?" Pyrrha frowned. "Hmm. I suppose I probably should have clarified. Yes, I am a duplicate of Pyrrha Nikos." She put a hand on one hip, then gave a friendly wave. "Hello again!" she said in a singsong voice. 

The same way that the human Pyrrha had said hello. Blake remembered stepping out onto the lawn, seeing Raven with the four strangers, when the red-headed woman had given a friendly wave and called out, "Hello!" in a singsong voice. Tears crawled across Blake's cheeks. 

"Uh, did I say something? Did I do something?" Pyrrha asked. "Oh no. I...I was supposed to act nice. Make a good impression. Of course I do something that makes her fucking cry." She thumped herself in the head. "Um...sorry?"

"You...you didn't do anything," Blake told her. 

Pyrrha laughed, rubbing her head. "So-rry," she called out. She smiled. 

"So, uh, Pyrrha," Blake asked. "What...brings you here?"

"I got the call from Roman to round you and your siblings up," she said, looking around. "But he didn't tell me where any of you would be, so..." She shrugged apologetically. "I mostly just kinda stood here while you read. For two straight hours."

Blake blushed. 

Ren pulled out his phone, then dialed a number. "Raven, is Roman there? Hmm. I need to speak with him real quick." A short pause. "Mister Torchwick, there is a duplicate of Pyrrha here, claiming to be acting on your orders. I ask you to verify this."

A tense pause. Ren nodded. "Understood. Might I ask why you told her to 'round up' the royals?"

Another pause. Ren cast a suspicious glance at Pyrrha. "One last question. Do Raven or Summer know about this? Okay then. Might I double-check with Raven?" He lowered the phone. "He hung up."

Pyrrha gave an awkward laugh. "Now, you know, there's a very funny story about all of this, one which I'll gladly tell you later..."

Ren fired. Stone flew up into the air as the ground right in front of Pyrrha was shot. Pyrrha took a surprised step backwards. 

"Make a move and I'll fire," he said coldly, "whether you look like her or not."

Pyrrha flinched. "Look, we mean no harm. We're only trying to protect you."

"Protect us from what?" Blake demanded. 

Pyrrha paused hesitantly. "I'm...not sure how to put this...um..." She scratched her head, giving another awkward chuckle. "Wow. Uh...I think it would be best if Roman explained this..."

"Start talking," Ren snarled, pointing both guns at her. 

"Um, Yatsuhashi, a little help here?" Pyrrha called out. A large figure strode from behind a bookshelf, standing right behind them. It appeared to be a duplicate of Yatsuhashi. Blake had never talked to the large man much. And rather than his signature green armor, this duplicate wore a dark brown robe that lightly touched the ground as he walked. And a large ring of swords floated behind him, pointing away from him. "We're only trying to help here," he said. 

Blake spun around and put her sword up to his throat. He didn't seem to mind the blade too much. 

"Please, everything will make sense in a little while," he said. Then, faster than Blake thought someone that large could move, he grabbed her and lifted her off the ground. 

"PUT ME DOWN!" Blake screamed, panicking. She swung her sword at his face. It hit and bounced off harmlessly. "Put her down!" Ren cried, pointing his guns at Yatsuhashi. Yatsu's response was to pick up Ren, ignoring the gunshots, and put him on top of a nearby bookshelf. 

"If you jump from there, you will hurt yourself badly," Yatsu stated. "But if you stay put, you will not break anything."

Ren struggled to maintain his balance, then flopped down on top of the shelf, holding onto it tightly. "And where are the other three?" Yatsu asked. 

"No fucking clue," Pyrrha said. "Though Neo said she was handling Ruby and Weiss."

"So that leaves Yang?" Yatsu asked. "Wasn't Roman going after her?"

"Yeah."

"So he sent the two of us to get Blake?"

"Yup."

"Both of us. Together. Cause...it takes both of us now?"

"Mm-hm."

There was an awkward silence. "Eh, what do I care," Yatsu said with a shrug. Blake swung her sword at him again, but this time he just grabbed the sword, pulled it from her hands, and tossed it away. "Let's get out of here."

They turned to exit the library--through the Summer Home? White stood in the doorway, rapier drawn. She pointed it straight at Pyrrha. "Duplicates?" she asked. Pyrrha nodded. "Hmph." A haughty, too-good-for-you sound. "Stop where you are. Put her down."

"Um...we can't?" Pyrrha said with an awkward chuckle. "Sorry?"

"Drop her or I make you," White said. 

"You can't make us," Yatsu told her. "Please. We don't want to fight."

"We also don't really have time for this," Pyrrha said with a sigh, running a hand through her red hair. "Amalgam!"

The wall beside White exploded. White leapt aside, a white glyph appearing at her feet as she soared across the room, landing by one of the bookshelves. Stepping through the hole in the wall was what Blake could only assume to be the Amalgam. 

But when she'd asked Jaune about it...he said it had four heads. Now, it only had one. One head, three mouths, four eyes, each one a different color, with a bunch of black ribbons sticking out of the back of its head. 

Blake stared at it in shock as it laughed--one loud, echoing voice. "I remember walls being a lot harder to destroy," it said. 

Yatsu took a step back from it. Blake struggled against his grip, but he held on tightly. 

"You called?" the Amalgam asked, turning to Pyrrha. Pyrrha nodded at White. "She is getting in the way, and...we don't have the time to fight her."

"And afterwards, I can kill Raven," the Amalgam said viciously. It appeared to savor the thought before Pyrrha said, "No! No you cannot!"

The Amalgam turned and looked at her, its face inches away from hers. "We all heard our orders. Raven Branwen is not a target," Pyrrha said firmly. "The four demons? Kill them. But leave Raven alone. Okay?"

"I heard the orders, but I don't really care about them," the Amalgam snarled. "I am going to kill Raven like I was promised I could."

"Wha--no one told you to--" Pyrrha jumped out of the way as the Amalgam struck. Its large hand smashed the ground where she'd stood. "I don't care," the Amalgam hissed. "I am going to kill her. Nothing you or anyone else can do is going to stop me."

"Stop!" White cried. The Amalgam turned to her. "Look, I know a bit of what you're going through. The pain of losing your home--the pain of being unable to return..." White strode forward, hands folded in front of her chest. She rubbed a tear from one of her eyes. "It hurts."

"It hurts a lot," the Amalgam agreed quietly. 

"But, despite everything Raven's done, does it really help anything to be hunting her down like this? Is it going to help you return home, or make the pain go away?" White asked. 

The Amalgam was silent for a long minute. Then, it said, slowly, hesitantly, "She...told you?"

Blake blinked. White looked alarmed. 

"She told you the truth. A practical stranger she'd just met...and never once mentioned it to...any of her family?" the Amalgam said quietly. Four voices, cracking. "Ah. So I see. I'm not even worth her _time _now, AM I?"

Fire crackled along its larger arms. The stone beneath its feet cracked. 

"What? No! I didn't--"d

"SILENCE!" it screamed. "SHUT UP! I KNOW HOW IT IS! SHE GOT YOU...TO KILL ME, DIDN'T SHE?"

"No! That's not--"

It reared its head back and laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Pyrrha and Yatsuhashi walked backwards, towards the stairway up into the Summer Home as the Amalgam said, "Alright then. Kill me like you were supposed to. I'll settle this, then go kill her myself!"


	21. White

For the first time in six months, White was glad she was sober. Or as sober as she ever got, these days. The Amalgam was fast--fast enough to make her escapes and dodges narrow and harrowing, even using her boosting glyphs. Her black glyphs did nothing to slow it down, and she didn't have time to use time dilation, ironically enough. 

It had gotten faster, since she'd fought it a year ago. She'd barely fought it, even then. Its new form apparently came with new power--she didn't think it had had access to their Semblances. Yet, rose petals flew into the air as it propelled itself on glyphs, evaded her attacks with Blake's shadow Semblance, and was perpetually on fire. 

And yet, with four arms and eyes, three mouths, a stinger...it had a distinctly human appearance, which added one last level of nightmare to the whole fight. 

The library was now on fire. White jumped above one of its attacks, studying its movements. She couldn't out-muscle it, and she didn't have the speed to outmaneuver it. But it wasn't paying any attention at all--so she could out _think _it. 

It wasn't wielding a scythe--thankfully, because it had last time. But both of its right arms moved at the same time, in the same way. It didn't appear to be able to move them separately--if one made a fist, the other made a fist. Same with its two left hands. She could probably use that to her advantage. 

She was so focused on its hands that she didn't see the stinger. She was knocked out of the air, mid-leap, and smashed right through a bookshelf. She felt her stomach, where black smoke was leaking. The wound closed up in seconds--but in those few seconds the Amalgam had cleared the distance between them. White rolled aside as it swung down at her. She leapt aside onto her feet, dodging another attack, then slashed at it with Myrtenaster. Her sword scraped its shoulder, but didn't breach the Aura. 

It had the Aura of four separate demons, she realized. Breaching it could take hours. She knew that Raven used a special kind of sword to cut through its Aura. She moved out of the way as it turned and attacked her, then she stabbed it in the back before leaping backwards, out of the way of the ribbons, which slashed at empty ground. White discharged her sword, throwing ice dust at it using a white glyph. The Amalgam broke through the thin layer of ice that had formed around it. She blocked a heavy punch with her sword, holding off the blow before knocking the fist to the side and jumped backwards. She felt the tip of her blade--it was slightly bent. 

She looked up at the Amalgam, which stood there. She gauged it about twelve foot tall. 

"You don't need to do this," she told it. 

"You don't know what I need to do," it snarled. _They _snarled. She'd always thought about it as one, hurt person. But it was four, wasn't it? Team RWBY, but all in the same body. _They _were hurt. 

"Please," White begged. "You can stop. All of you. Just pause. Breathe."

The Amalgam leapt forward, landing in front of her, and roared right in her face. 

"Please," White repeated. Then she leapt into the air as it swung at her. White created a white glyph in the air, touching it, then propelled herself towards the Amalgam as it looked up at her. 

But she forgot about the ribbons. The ribbons wrapped around her ankle, and she was yanked backwards and slammed into the ground. Her vision blurred and she heard a high-pitched ringing. As her eyes focused, she noticed the large chandelier above her. Then the Amalgam planted their boot on her chest, knocking the air from her lungs. The boot was pushed down. "I win," the Amalgam laughed. "Did you think you could beat me?"

"I wasn't trying to beat you," White said, gasping for breath and trying to shove the boot of her chest. The boot was lifted, just slightly, to allow her to breath. She drew in a deep breath, gasping. 

"You weren't trying to beat me?" the Amalgam said. "What are you talking about?"

"I was trying to talk to you," White said, breathing deeply. 

"Talk? TALK?" The boot pinned back against her, and White felt a rib cracking. She screamed in pain. "What could we possibly want to talk about?"

"Even though...she summoned you," White said, "you can...just forgive. Does this...really make you...that happy?"

"YES!"

"Then why...don't you look...happy?" White gasped. 

The Amalgam stopped, blinking. The eyes didn't blink all as one--each one blinked on its own. "Raven...Raven needs to die...she...she pulled us from our home...she pulled us from our lives! And for what? So she could give her year-old child an entire entourage of bodyguards!"

"She regretted it," White said. "She's always regretted it. That's why she never told any of them." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ren rising. _Ren..._She knew Ren. He had a nice voice. He was aiming...for chandelier? _Clever. _But that wouldn't pierce its Aura. 

"But...why..." the Amalgam sobbed. Its hands clutched its face. "Why..."

"It's not too late," White told her. "You can stop now. Just...get your rest."

"It is too late," the Amalgam said quietly. 

"I know you feel that way," White said. "And perhaps...you need some time to think." She reached up and created two white glyphs, one on its back, one on its chest. It blinked, looking at it, then Ren fired, shooting the chain holding up the chandelier. The chandelier hit the glyph, which boosted it forward, skewering through the Amalgam, and, unfortunately, into White's stomach. She grimaced. The Amalgam felt metal shrapnel sticking out of its chest as its skin faded away to black smoke. The Amalgam died once more, but, perhaps, next time it appeared would be better. 

Raven had done something very bad in summoning it. She had been trying for many years to fix that mistake. Why Raven had left in the first place, White didn't know. But now, everything was done. 

Ren rushed over, moving the chandelier off her and picking her up. "Are you alright?" he asked. 

"I will be," she coughed. "Once I get to someone with healing magic." She sniffed, smelling smoke. The library had been set on fire. And soon, the building would be on fire. 

"I already called Summer," Ren told her. "She'll do her best to save Blake and the others, but for now, we need to get you out of here." White nodded as Ren rushed out the door. Not up into the Summer home, after Pyrrha, but out the front door. 

If the God everyone in this world believed in was, in fact, real, she wished He'd watch over the royals. 


	22. Blake Belladonna

"Put me down!" Blake cried, shoving Yatsuhashi. The big man didn't react, still following Pyrrha as they moved expertly through the Summer Home. 

They'd had to have studied maps of the place, to be able to move this quickly through it--even evading most of the long, looping hallways that Blake sometimes had trouble with. "You'll thank us later," Pyrrha said. She turned a corner, stopping just short of ramming right into Roman Torchwick, carrying a slumped-over Raven. 

"Roman!" Blake cried. 

"Sorry," Roman said. "You'll thank us later."

"How did you knock out Raven?" Pyrrha blurted out. 

"Tranq to the neck," Roman replied. "Figured I'd explain myself from a position where she can't stab me."

"Roman, please," Blake said. This was a dream, right? Just a dream. The book she'd been reading surely must have gone off on a long and boring rant, causing her to fall asleep and this was all the product of a grieving, sleeping brain. "Surely you can't want this."

"I once asked Raven what she'd do to protect you," Roman said, turning to Blake. "She replied with, 'anything'. So I know she'll thank me later. But for now, we need to get to the roof. The Amalgam set the building on fire...and I lost Yang. She managed to get away." He rubbed his head. "We'll have to come back another time for her."

"Roman..." Blake said. "Please don't do this."

Roman flinched. "I know this is hard right now, but it will all get better. Trust me. Now come on. Let's get going."

The smell of smoke filled the air as they passed the living room. Yatsuhashi carried Blake off the ground. No matter how much she struggled, she couldn't stop him. And Raven...

It hurt to see Raven like that. Since Raven had met her, Raven had been a fighter. Always standing strong. Through all good and bad times, Raven had been there for her. When she'd gotten into the big fight with Yang. When she'd fallen out of the tree and broke her leg. 

When Pyrrha had died. 

Tears came to Blake's eyes. _Raven..._Seeing Raven slumped over, her body limp..."Put me _down!_" Blake cried. She grabbed one of the swords floating behind Yatsuhashi and rammed the hilt into Yatsuhashi's face. He was surprised, and dropped her. Blake landed on her feet, and jumped backwards, pointing the sword at them. 

"Blake!" Roman said. "Please listen."

"I'm listening," Blake said. Then the sword she held twisted, bending, and wrapped itself around her wrists. "What the--" The sword--it was actually too twisted and balled up to be called that anymore--was pulled as if on invisible strings, and Blake found herself being pulled across the room. 

"Sorry, but now is really a poor time to stop and explain this," Roman said as Yatsuhashi picked her back up. "Thanks for the assist, Pyrrha."

"No problem, cuz, you know, Polarity," Pyrrha said with a shrug. 

"Just...explain yourself!" Pyrrha shouted. "Explain to me what's going on! Why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm--ah, fuuuuck." He pulled to a stop, stepping out onto the roof. Yatsuhashi and Pyrrha stepped onto the roof as well. A large getaway jet was sitting, ready for takeoff. Sitting on top of it was Red, her massive scythe out. Standing in front of it was Black. 

"I wish I could say I'm surprised to see you kidnapping young women, but I'm really not," Red said flatly. "But what I'm really interested in is _what _you are doing."

"You've been here a year now, right?" Roman said. "So you've surely seen a bit of what Summer's--"

"I know what Summer did, but I don't give a flying fuck about that right now," Red interrupted. "What. Are. You. Doing."

"A rebellion has started," Roman said. "There are too many people Summer didn't even try to please. Everyone hates her. I tried reasoning with her, but she never listened. So, before the bullets start flying, I'm getting the kids to safety. So they won't die."

"And...you're with the rebellion?"

"Yes," Roman said. "I've seen--"

"I don't care about what you've seen," Red interrupted. She hopped down, standing in front of the jet. She looked directly at Roman. "You...you're better than the Roman from my world." She laughed quietly. "You're at least trying to be good, even if you're not doing a good job. Good luck. From what I see, you're going to need it."

"Red?" Blake asked. "A...a little help here?"

"No."

"But..." Blake blinked. "I...please, I need--"

"I have only ever met you once in my life," Red stated bitterly. "You are not _my _Blake Belladonna. You are a stranger to me. I have no knowledge of who you are, of what kind of person you are." Red seemed troubled. "C'mon, Black. Let's go." A burst of petals later, they were gone. 

"Come on then," Roman said, running to the jet. "Neo's already on board!"

One last burst of defiance came to Blake. She struggled and kicked, hitting at Yatsuhashi. Pyrrha lifted one hand, and the metal sword knotted around Blake's wrists lifted into the air, pulling Blake away from Yatsuhashi. 

"Thanks," Yatsuhashi said as he walked to the jet. 

"Don't sweat--" A burst of silver light sawed right through the sword, and Blake fell down, hitting the roof as silver dust fell around her. The stairwell onto the roof _exploded, _and for the first time, Blake saw Summer using all the power she had. She glowed, bright light shining around her as she blasted Pyrrha and Yatsuhashi. The two were thrown backwards, hitting the gangway of the jet. 

"Run!" Pyrrha cried, climbing into the jet. "She's here! Get this thing flying!" 

The gangway closed, and Yatsuhashi hurried inside. The jet took off and flew towards the _Ixion. _

Summer kneeled down next to Blake. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Blake grabbed Summer in a hug. "They...they took..."

"I know." Summer glared up at the _Ixion. _"C'mon. A lot is going on. Let's get you away from here."


	23. Pyrrha Nikos

This time, when Pyrrha awoke, it was to voices. 

"--cking brilliant! Come on and fight me, cowards! I'll take any one of you in a fight!" _Slam. _"Cowards! Fucking cowards! Come on and fight me head on!"

"Ruby, please stop."

"Weiss?"

"You're not going to change anything. There are a lot of them. You are outnumbered and unarmed. If you keep fighting and struggling...they'll just keep using more ropes to tie you up. I don't like seeing you hurt like this. Please, Ruby. Just stop."

"I'm...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to hurt you. I...dammit. I'm sorry, Weiss."

Pyrrha sat up, surveying the room. This time it was a lush hotel room with two large beds, one on each side of the room. A small window sat in between them(which was kind of stupid, they could just crawl out the window and escape) with a desk underneath it. No portraits or curtains. No clocks or lamps. On the other bed sat Ruby and Weiss. Ruby, evidently, had struggled a lot--she was tied with numerous ropes, one tying her legs together, several more pinning her arms to her sides. Both of them looked right at Pyrrha as she sat up. "Hey there," Pyrrha said. She looked at the door. "Where are we?"

"Pyrrha?" Weiss said, voice shaking. "We...we thought you died."

"Umm...nope. I'm alive." Pyrrha checked her pulse. "Yup. I'm alive." After all that had happened today, being a zombie would hardly have surprised her. 

"Pyrrha! You're--wait. Hold on a frickity-frackity second." Ruby narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "We literally just saw a duplicate of Pyrrha Nikos not ten whole minutes ago."

"Okay." Pyrrha frowned. "Umm...what does that have to do with--"

"How do I know you're the real Pyrrha and not just a trick?"

Pyrrha stared flatly. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah. You could be a duplicate designed to trick us into giving you the information you want!"

"Ruby, if they wanted information from us, they could have gotten it a looong time ago," Weiss told her. 

"If you're the real Pyrrha, tell me something only Pyrrha would know. And not just any Pyrrha--our Pyrrha."

"Hmm..." Pyrrha thought for a minute. "When Blake fell down from that tree and broke her leg, you started crying. Even after we got her to the hospital, you were still sobbing and crying, and then you ran off down the hallways. I manged to find you. I helped comfort you."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "What did you say?"

Pyrrha thought back hard, wishing she'd picked an event that was more recent. " 'It's okay. She'll be okay. Everything is okay. Everything's going to be okay.' "

"It _is _you," Ruby said, tears streaking down her face. "Oh, thank God, you're alive!" She tried jumping up, but fell flat on her face. Pyrrha leapt up and helped her back onto her bed. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Again, I ask, where are we?"

"You don't know?"

"No. That guy in the coat...Oscar, I think his name was?...he used some sort of sleep spell on me. I haven't been conscious for the past..." She bit her lip. "How long have I been gone?"

"Almost a week, I think."

It wasn't as long as it could have been. It still hit like a sledgehammer. She flinched. "God...I..." She sighed. As Summer had said on multiple occasions, "Don't worry about the past." _Most often to Raven, actually. _

Pyrrha stood next to the window, peering out. She saw clouds...below them. "_...where _are we?" she repeated. 

"No idea. Roman kidnapped us and loaded us onto a jet, and then we got moved into this room," Weiss said. 

"Roman? Roman Torchwick?" Pyrrha looked at them. "Why in God's name would he do that?"

"No fucking clue," Ruby muttered. "But I look forward to throwing him off the _Ixion, _the rat bastard."

"Speaking of which, we're probably on the _Ixion,_" Pyrrha said. Gears were ticking. Raven had, on many occasions, drilled into Pyrrha's brain instructions for if she or the royals were kidnapped. Find out where you were. Found out how to contact people. Find out an escape route. 

They were thousands of feet off the ground. None of them knew how to fly a jet, so they couldn't get off. They couldn't fight their way off. But the _Ixion _was more than a ship. It was a city. Surely there was someone who would help them. 

A plan, then. Get out of their room. Get into the city. Find somewhere they could stay. Call Summer and Raven for help. 

Raven...

The Amalgam had said...but could that be true? Could it really be true? Would Raven really have summoned a demon?

"Does anyone come in and check on us?"

"Pyrrha did, a while ago," Ruby replied. "Um, demon Pyrrha."

"Well, fuck," Pyrrha said. "We're unarmed. We can't really take on a duplicate." She looked over at Ruby. "Weiss, have you tried taking off the chains?"

"Um...no?" Weiss said. 

"Do that," Pyrrha said, thinking. "I have an idea." She looked up at the roof. A security camera sat there. Pyrrha pulled out a drawer from the dresser and threw it at the camera, smashing it. 

"Pyrrha--?" 

"I have a plan. I'm going to get you out of this room and too safety. But first..." Pyrrha rubbed her head. "We're gonna need to strangle me."

"WHAT?"

"Demon me," Pyrrha said. "Damn, no wonder they swapped to 'Red' and 'White' so quickly. This is so confusing. I'm just going to call her 'Ponytail'."

"Don't you also have a ponytail?" Ruby pointed out. 

"That's beside the point," Pyrrha stated. 

As expected, Ponytail opened the door within a minute. She strode into the room. "Okay, really funny, smash the camera," she said. "You had your joke." She looked at the beds. "Um, where the fuck are you?"

She looked to one side, then the other. "Uh...the door was locked...please still be in here?" She stepped farther into the room, past the door. Then Pyrrha leapt out from behind the door, tying the chain around the demon's throat. "Gah! What are you doing? Are you trying to strangle me?" Ponytail stumbled, grasping the chain as the human tightened the chain. "You're...not...doing a good...job. _Urk."_

Ruby jumped forward and slugged Ponytail in the stomach. And again. Red light flickered along Ponytail's body. But then, the chain vibrated and suddenly snapped. Pyrrha flung backwards, smashing into the dresser as Ponytail booted Ruby backwards. She rubbed her throat, breathing heavy. A red bruise had formed where the chain had been. 

"Holy shit, you kids are tough," Ponytail said. "Ow. Ow, ow ow..."

Giving a cry of berserk rage, Weiss leapt forward and smashed the dresser drawer into Ponytail's face hard enough so that wood splintered and scattered across the room. Ponytail stumbled backwards, then fell to the ground, presumably unconscious. 

"That could have gone both worse and better, so, yay," Pyrrha said, rising and rubbing her back. "C'mon. Let's..." She looked at Ponytail. She'd brought her weapons. Pyrrha picked up the spear, then pointed it out the window, aiming it like a rifle. 

It was both a spear...and a rifle. She picked up the shield. "Ooh. Ooh. Oh, oh...yeeeaaaah." She grinned. "These are awesome, and I'm keeping them. Now let's go."

Pyrrha could have thought things through a little better, as she had no idea how to scout her way through the _Ixion. _However, the hallways were littered with 'you are here' signs, and there were no guards anywhere. Pyrrha stopped beside a window, looking out. She saw...buildings. A massive window in the ceiling, letting sunlight fall on row after row of buildings. 

The _Ixion _was massive, she realized. She looked at the closest sign, then continued running forward down the hallways. "Looks like the elevator is ahead," she said. "C'mon. We'll ride down into the...city..." She grated to a stop. Roman Torchwick looked at her. "Now, now. Let's talk this out."

"Stay behind me," Pyrrha said. She hefted the spear and shield. Unfamiliar weapons, yet so nostalgic. 

"Pyrrha, Ruby, Weiss." Roman gave them each a nod. "I have no wish to hurt you."

"You have a funny way of showing it," Pyrrha commented. 

"No, you're just looking at it the wrong way," Roman replied. He took a step forward, his cane tapping against the ground. "Here. Let me explain."

"While the rest of your troops catch up with us? No thanks," Pyrrha growled. "Out of our way."

Roman stepped aside. "I have no wish to hurt you," he repeated. Pyrrha pointed her gun at him as the three of them passed and entered the elevator. Pyrrha punched in their destination into the elevator. 

"Just let me explain!" Roman cried, stretching out a hand as the elevator doors closed.

The walls were made of glass, so they had the luxury of being able to see the city they were descending into. "Lots of buildings," Ruby commented. 

"Yeah," Weiss said. 

"So, we're...going to find someone willing to take us in?" Ruby asked. 

"That's the plan," Pyrrha replied, leaning against the doors. 

"And...call for help?" Something was troubling Ruby. Pyrrha looked her over carefully. "Yes." A troubling thought came to her mind. "Did they...do anything to you?"

"Besides kidnap me? Uh, no."

Pyrrha breathed a sigh of relief. "So then. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"A fast reply for nothing to be wrong," Weiss noted. 

"It's just..." Ruby sat down on the floor of the elevator. "I failed. Raven...trained us so hard. To be so good. She knew something like this could happen. She prepared us for it, taught us swordplay. And I failed her. I failed...Raven...oh my God, I forgot, they took Raven, too!"

"What?" Pyrrha exclaimed. "What do you mean, they took Raven?"

"When...when they loaded us onto the jet, they...they brought Raven on board, too. She...she was slumped over...and...and droopy...I...oh my God..." 

"Breathe deeply. Calm down." Pyrrha breathed in and out. "Remember. They brought all of you onto the ship _alive. _That means that they need you for something." She didn't want to think too hard about what that 'something' was. "So she'll be fine."

"You don't know that," Ruby snapped, standing. 

"I don't," Pyrrha replied truthfully. "But there's no use worrying about her now. We need to worry about getting to safety."

Ruby sat back down. "When did you grow up?" she asked. 

"About a year ago," Pyrrha said. "When most of my bones were broken by the Amalgam. You see, Ruby, I had one job, and that day, I failed. I'd never been in a real fight before--I was freaked out, I was scared..." She chuckled, not entirely sure why, a smile coming to her lips. "But I remembered Raven's advice and teachings. And after that, when I could stand without crutches..."

"After a good two weeks," Ruby said with a smile. 

Pyrrha smiled back. "I went back into my training. Harder this time. I trained so hard. I went a long way. I actually surprised her a few times, when sparring." Her smile faded. "But...I failed again, didn't I? Face to face with the Amalgam, once again, not a full week ago. And..." She was crying. She slumped against the wall, falling to the floor. "Mom..." she whispered. If they'd arrived just a little earlier, could they have saved her? If they'd arrived a little later, could Pyrrha have avoided being captured? The sudden memory flashed across her eyes, the figure in dark armor hitting her in the head with a gun. Or was it a spear...?

She looked at the gun-spear she was currently holding. It had ARKOS engraved in the handle in a stylized font. The same weapon? Come to think of it, Ponytail had worn black armor as well...

They'd had a duplicate pose as just a normal demon? Why?

"Um...Pyrrha?" Weiss said, her voice full of worry. "Are you okay?"

"No. But I will be." Pyrrha wiped the tears from her eyes. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Weiss asked. 

"No." She looked up. "Is that...music?"

"A violin, if I'm not mistaken," Weiss replied. "Why..." From above, a red light flashed. A blinding red light. Pyrrha stood up, all other thoughts forgotten. _Something _was up there. And it jumped. Something large and grey flew past the elevator, great wings flapping as it descended into the city with a loud cry. 

The music had stopped. "Well, shit," Pyrrha said. "Guess that demon's supposed to bring us back."

"What do we do?" Ruby asked. 

"There's nothing we can do but what we were doing," Pyrrha said with a shrug. "In any case, we're almost there."

As it turned out, the Arkos spear could fold up with the shield and be carried across Pyrrha's back nicely. In addition, unless you looked closely, it looked like a backpack, so she wouldn't be running around with weapons on her back. Or, at the very least, wouldn't look like she was carrying weapons around. 

But there was no one in the streets. Pyrrha saw nothing around but thick, dense smog--the kind that curled around you, insufferably close. She coughed on it more than once. Ruby, however, was shorter than Weiss and Pyrrha and was constantly coughing. Pyrrha wasn't sure, but she felt something off about the smog--especially as Ruby wasn't that much shorter than the other two. 

"We need to get indoors," Pyrrha said. So she went up to a house, intent on knocking and asking if they could stay. But no one answered. 

"No one's home, I guess," Weiss said. 

Pyrrha grimaced, but moved onto the next house. 

And the next. 

It was the fourth house that finally someone answered. After Pyrrha knocked, a tired voice called out, "If you are who I think you are, I'm chucking a glass bottle at you." The door opened, and a tired, bedraggled-looking woman in a militaristic jacket with most of the buttons undone. Beneath it she wore a dirty, pale-white tank top. She looked over the kids. "Okay. Color me surprised. Here to sell me cookies or some shit like that?" She took a swig of a glass bottle that had a strong liquor scent. 

"Um...no. This smog is causing us some issues, and we don't really have a place we can stay," Pyrrha said, rubbing her head.

"So you're going door to door asking random strangers for help?" the woman asked with a snort. "Yeah. That's a good idea."

"Please, we really need help," Pyrrha begged. 

"Ugh. Fine." The woman rolled her eyes. "If one of you is willing to sweep for me, you can have a room for a bit. I have a few extras, in any case." She stopped, seemingly troubled. 

"Thank you," Pyrrha said. "Thank you, Miss...?"

"Just call me Winter," the woman said.

After a moment of silence, Weiss asked, "Winter Schnee?"


	24. Yang Xiao Long

Yang was hurting. And not from the cut across her cheek. Not from the burn marks that covered her right hand. But from inside. She'd lived with Ruby. Grown up with Ruby. For the past sixteen years of her life, she'd been with Ruby. 

But Ruby was gone now. Not just gone. _Taken. _And there was nothing she could do. 

Summer paced across the center of the room. Blake sat beside Yang, trying to comfort her with her presence, but only reminding Yang about the three people who weren't there. Tai stood, trying to comfort Summer. 

They'd had to get a hotel room. Their house, after all, had been reduced to a smoking husk. Sure, most of the stone foundations still stood. But most of the furniture had burned. The library had burned. And no one present in the room wanted to think about the empty beds. 

The door opened. Yellow strode in, rubbing her head. "Oh, boy. You _really _pissed of Red and Black, Summer."

"_I _ pissed _them _off?" Summer burst out, spinning on her. "They walked right past Blake! They didn't even _try _to help!"

"You ignored me when I said that we suspected Roman Torchwick was a traitor," Yellow said stiffly. "Just like you ignored Black, when she said she saw Roman's pink-and-brown little mutt helping out and commanding a band of criminals. And like how you've ignored literally _every single gods'-damned person _who ever brought you a complaint!"

"That's not true!"

"You ignored Roman, and look where that got you!"

Summer flinched back. Yellow took a deep breath, then said, "Roman went to you. Multiple. Times. He told you that you weren't making your subjects happy. That everyone was pissed at you. That _he _was pissed at you. You ignored him. Time and again."

Summer didn't answer. She staggered backwards, sitting down on one of the room's two beds. "And then, after all that," Yellow continued, "you have the _gall _to go and tell Red that she's the reason your daughter isn't here right now. Honestly, if we could have gotten any help out of those two, we definitely aren't now." Yellow sighed. "When she found out you were alive in this world, she was thrilled. She'd finally get to meet the mother that's dead in our world." Yellow shook her head. "After she started hearing what people were saying about you, her opinion slowly changed. Now...I think she hates you now."

"I...I didn't mean to..."

"Doesn't matter," Tai said. "As you've said a number of times, 'no use worrying about the past'. We just need to go, get our kids back, and then...fix things with your PR."

"I'm helping," Yang said. Everyone looked at her. "I'm helping get Ruby and Weiss and Raven back."

"Yang, you're not--"

"I don't care! I need to do something! I'm not just going to...to sit here, doing nothing, waiting day after day for you guys to come back!" She jumped to her feet, pointing out the window towards the massive shape of the _Ixion. _"Roman Torchwick is right fucking there, and we are sitting here talking about how bad we feel instead of actually doing anything!"

There was a stunned silence, broken moments later when Yellow gave a slow clap. "Well spoken," she said. "But you might get hurt. None of you have Auras, and I'm...with White hurt, and Red and Black..." She paused a minute. "...bitter, I'm the only demon you're going to have on your side. And he has at least two duplicates and the Amalgam. And the Amalgam's bigger than before. Way tougher. And we're down one of your two toughest fighters." She grimaced. "With Raven captured as well..." She laughed. "Oh, gods, we're screwed, aren't we? Well, let's do this." She punched a fist into her palm. "Let's make a plan. And keep in mind, I have no experience with this kinda thing. Red was generally the one to make plans, back home."


	25. Weiss Schnee

Weiss was so often quiet that when she was struck speechless, people seldom noticed. It took roughly a full minute of Winter's stare to get her to start talking again...only to be cut off by choking on the dark smog. 

"Ugh, come inside," Winter said, walking back into her house. "That damn smog wasn't there this morning, and I don't like the look of it." She closed the door behind the three of them, then bolted it up, and, just for extra security, slid a latch into place before locking it with a normal key. 

Which meant that roughly half the locks on the door were locked. 

"I'll ask again how you know my name," Winter said, taking a seat in a large stuffed chair. All the chairs were large and plush--plusher than Summer kept her own chairs. 

"Well, that's...uh...complicated," Weiss said, rubbing her head. "Mind if I take a seat?"

"Knock yourself out."

Sitting down, Weiss began the long explanation. "So, um, my name is Weiss. Weiss Schnee."

The glass bottle Winter held dropped to the floor with a loud clatter. She looked at Weiss, eyes wide with shock. 

"Um...Ruby's family...found me in a wrecked car by the side of the road," Weiss said. "We, uh, couldn't find out my family, and I didn't remember, so, they took me in. And--" Winter leapt forward, grabbing Weiss into a tight back-breaking hug. 

"I...thought you were dead," Winter said, all tiredness gone from her voice. She sounded like she was crying. "Dead with Mom and Dad..."

Weiss, not sure what else to do, hugged Winter back. "Um...sorry, but, I really don't remember you."

"I don't care; being an amnesiac's better than being a corpse," Winter replied. She let go of Weiss, returning to her seat with an awkward cough. "But, uh, I get that being hugged by a complete stranger might be..."

"Just a tad awkward," Weiss agreed, nodding. 

"Who the hell is she?" Pyrrha burst out. When everyone looked at her, she added, "Sorry, but, I really have no clue what's going on." 

"First, you can put down the broom," Winter said. "I really don't even bother with the sweeping anymore. Second, I'm her sister." She frowned. "But I am curious as to how you knew my name if you don't remember me."

"Well, we've been living with Summer..."

"Summer Rose? The Queen? God's chosen one?"

"Yup."

"Huh." Winter scratched her head. "And these two are...?"

"This is Ruby--Summer's daughter."

"Hello, Miss Winter," Ruby said, waving. 

"And this is Pyrrha Nikos--our bodyguard and friend."

"Hello again!" Pyrrha said with a wave. 

"Okay. Continue with your story." Winter picked up the glass bottle and downed the last bit of liquor inside it. 

"So, um, a little over a year ago, we were doing our sword-fighting practice in the garden with Raven--uh, she's, uh..." Weiss bit her lip. "Tai married Raven, their daughter was Yang, Raven left, he married Summer, Ruby was their daughter, Raven came back, and yeah, it's complicated and awkward."

"Anyone else?" Winter jested, smiling. 

"Three other bodyguards and a homeless girl that Raven adopted upon her return," Weiss said dryly. 

"I was joking," Winter said, stunned. 

"I know," Weiss said. "So, yeah, a year ago, we were sparring together, and...well, there was a big explosion in the garden--away from where we were sparring. We learned afterwards...um...that someone...summoned duplicates of us. All four of us--Ruby, me, Blake, Yang."

"Inside your castle?" Winter said. "Who did it?"

"We never found out," Weiss admitted. "But here recently, our duplicates--we refer to them by color, so things don't get complicated--came back and were staying out our house. That's when I had an idea--I didn't remember my family, but White surely remembered her family from her world. So, I got the idea to talk to her about it." She paused. "She...didn't have too many fond memories of her home."

"Hmm. Don't know what things were like in her world, but the four of us had some good times," Winter said. "Dad, Mom, you, and me."

"White mentioned a brother? Whitley?"

"Nope. No brothers here."

"Huh." 

"So if you live in the palace, what are you doing on the _Ixion__?_" Winter asked. "Surely you have better places you could be."

"We were kidnapped by Roman Torchwick," Ruby stated. 

"What?" Winter exclaimed. 

"Yup," Weiss testified. "He kidnapped us. Well, he kidnapped me and Ruby. I don't know how Pyrrha got here."

"I had the hell beaten out of me at an earlier date," Pyrrha said. "Raven and I had gone to Arvinum to..." She trailed off, a pained look coming over her face. "I don't want to talk about it."

Thankfully, Winter didn't press that front. Instead, she said, "I'd thought I finally understood that man."

Weiss shared a look with Ruby. A not-good look. "Do you...know him?" Weiss asked. 

"Yeah. I'm military--or, was. I sort of quit after the...wreck." She grimaced. "For a time, he was my commanding officer." She looked at the two of them. "Oh, right. Kidnapper."

She looked at them. "So. What's the plan?"

"Ah...no idea," Pyrrha said. "I hadn't thought beyond this."

"Get a message out!" Ruby exclaimed. "We call Mom! Tell her where we are and that we're okay!"

"Seems like a good enough idea," Winter said, pulling out a phone. "What's her--"

A scream. And not any normal scream--Weiss didn't think it was possible for any set of human lungs to make a noise like that. A haunting, bone-chilling scream. And, most importantly, it was loud. The glass windows of the house shattered, and all four women dropped to the ground, covering their ears. A long, echoing moment remained, with the horrible scream echoing in their ears. Weiss had instinctively closed her eyes, and now opened them. Winter was already standing again, her sword at the ready. Weiss hadn't even noticed her carrying a sword. Something long and gray flew past the now empty windowsill. The door was smashed, locks and all, wood chips and metal shards flying across the room. A long, thin hand reached into the room. It was dark gray in color, long and thin, ending in four long, sharp needle fingers. . The creature it was a attached too was worse than the scream. 

It looked like it might have once been a woman. It stood only slightly taller than Pyrrha, but wore no clothing. Its skin--what was left of it--was a dark gray, mottled and ripped. Her stomach possessed no skin or flesh at all, and was simply a rotting spinal cord. Her feet ended in two long claws, and two pairs of wings sprouted from her back. But they had no skin--only a patchwork of bones. And then there was its face. No eyes--two eyeless sockets full of nothing but rotten flesh. She had no lips--only a a mess of crooked, jagged teeth. 

"What is that thing?" Weiss cried. 

"What?" Ruby called back. 

"Banshee," Winter said. Weiss couldn't tell if she was whispering or her hearing was off. 

"What?" Ruby called out again. "What is that thing?"

"An old demon Torchwick's dad fought," Winter said. "I'd thought he killed it..."

The Banshee opened its mouth to scream again, but a quick gunshot jerked its head aside. The bullet went through what remained of its cheeks, ripping flesh apart. No Aura protected it. It was no duplicate. Unlike Yellow and White and the rest, and even the Amalgam, it was no person. It wasn't even a copy of someone, or a fragment of someone--it was truly a demon. It hissed, turning on Pyrrha. 

"Hey, I like this thing!" Pyrrha cried out, examining her spear. Gun. Speargun? She looked up raised her shield as the Banshee attacked. She slid backwards, but her shield wasn't even scratched by the attack. She stepped in, stabbing the Banshee in the chest, then stepping back as it attacked her. It flew forward, four wings propelling it, but Pyrrha rolled aside as it attacked. The couch, being less lucky, was ripped to shreds by the Banshee's passing claws. It landed next to the window, scattering broken glass. It looked around for Pyrrha, raising one hand. Winter lunged forward and cut off the hand, which fell to the ground. 

"A little over-ripe, aren't you?" she cried triumphantly. With a notably less heroic cry, she stumbled back out off reach as it attacked with its remaining hands. 

"Yeah, let's kill it!" Ruby cried, stepping forward. 

"Ruby, we don't have weapons!" Weiss said, grabbing her hand. "We can't fight that thing! And besides, they've got it covered!" As if to emphasize her point, the Banshee was thrown backwards into a grandfather clock, which toppled and shattered. 

"Dammit," Ruby muttered, walking back away from the Banshee. 

The Banshee turned to face her, and Weiss instinctively knew that, even though it had no eyes, it was _looking _at her. "Run!" Weiss cried, pulling Ruby back out of the way. The Banshee lashed out a wing, narrowly missing Ruby. Then it jumped forward. Weiss ducked beneath the claw, but its other hand slammed into her chest. Luckily, it had no claws, but she was still throw away, but landed on a plush couch. 

"Weiss!" Ruby cried, rushing to her. But she didn't look at the Banshee, which attacked. 

Its hand slashed across Ruby's face. Blood splattered across the wall as Ruby screamed. And screamed. And screamed. She fell to the ground, clutching her face. The Banshee picked her up, still screaming. Then Pyrrha's shield shot across the room and hit the Banshee's face, severing its head. It collapsed to the ground, an inky black puddle spreading across the rug as the corpse dissipated. 

Weiss rushed forward, grabbing Ruby. "Ruby! Ruby! Are you okay?" She looked at Ruby's face. Flesh had been scraped aside, and...

Ruby's eyes were gone. Not cut, not slashed, just gone. Weiss stared in shock, a numb feeling spreading through her body as Winter and Pyrrha came over. They'd started talking. Weiss couldn't listen. All she could do was sit down and cry.


	26. Amalgam

The nine of them stood in the room. Cinder Fall leaned back in her chair, legs crossed as she sipped a glass of water. Her aide(and the Amalgam suspected lover) Emerald Sustrai stood behind her, ready to help. Mercury Black sat in the chair next to the two, leaning back and making himself as comfortable as possible. 

Yatsuhashi sat in his own chair. Pyrrha was way off to the side, leaning against a wall, a look of such intense fury on her face that no one had tried talking to her. 

Positioned in the center of the room was a circular table with a thin black book seated on top of it. The Amalgam sat behind a chair, all of her arms folded together in her lap. She hung her head, deep in thought. The people seated were chatting. The Amalgam didn't listen to that. Instead she listened to her memories. 

_"I know you feel that way. And perhaps you just need some time to think."_

_"This time, stay dead."_

_"Why won't you just stay dead?"_

_"Leave me alone!"_

Many memories flooded through her. Not one of them was good. Ever since she'd been summoned, she'd been in pain. But the pain was gone now. Nothing was there to force any of the four people who made up the Amalgam to be unhappy. Why did they have to kill Raven? Why? She'd killed them many times, hadn't she? But the first time had been out of mercy. And the second time, it had been self-defense. The Amalgam had started the fight. 

_"You don't need to do this."_

_"Stay away from me!"_

_"Please."_

_"Why won't you just leave me alone? Why keep coming back?"_

The early memories of Raven...she didn't even seem angry at the Amalgam. No. Just...afraid. She'd been terrified. 

The door opened. All conversation stopped as Oscar Pine walked into the room, his 'cane' tapping against the ground. The Amalgam now knew it to be a violin bow. Roman had a sword-cane. Oscar was the only one any of the Amalgam knew to have a violin-cane. 

"Well," Oscar said, smiling. "We think things are going rather well."

"You think?" Cinder said with a predatory grin. "The Queen's children are trapped on the _Ixion. _Raven and Roman are going to the hospital they're at right now. Everyone we need to kill in order to pull this off is going to be in one place. Speaking of which, did you get them?"

Oscar smiled. "Yes. Roman yelled at us for 'losing control' of the Banshee, but he's as clueless as the rest of our pawns." He took out a small glass vial, containing two silver balls, shining with a faint light. "Between these and the people of Arvinum, we have everything we need for the Ritual."

An entire town's worth of sacrifices. Three demons and the Amalgam to help perform it. A piece of God Himself, contained in the two silver eyes plucked from a clueless brat. 

Oscar set the vial down on the table. "You, Cinder, will get the power you crave. Pyrrha, Yatsuhashi, you will be able to return to your home."

Yatsuhashi raised a hand. "Will I still have the tentacle for an arm?" he asked, nodding to his right arm. 

"Not unless you want to," Oscar replied with a laugh. "And as for the Amalgam..." Oscar nodded at them. "You will get to kill Raven."

"They took my spear," Pyrrha growled. 

Oscar turned to her. "And you will get it back when you go to finish them off. Roman needs to die, the human Pyrrha needs to die, and the two royals need to die. Raven could take anyone in this room in a one-on-one fair fight, so she needs to die."

"What do you get?" Mercury asked. "You've promised rewards for everyone participating here. But what is it that _you _want?"

"The destruction caused by this ritual, and the aftermath, will be a beauty to behold. We really want nothing more than to orchestrate this performance."

"And the two of you..." Cinder said with a slow nod. "...what do you plan on doing afterwards?"

"Well, my counterpart could return home during the ritual," Oscar said, "but she won't do that unless things get iffy. Salem does like fireworks."

Some deep, inner part of the Amalgam recognized the name. The rest of her didn't care. 

"What about the royal demons?" Emerald asked. "Eyeball, Drunko, Psycho, and Bimbo, or whatever else they go by?"

"They are currently over a hundred miles away," Oscar countered. "No one can get on board the _Ixion _without use of a jet, and the _Ixion _has orders to shoot any jet that gets too close. There is nothing they can do. If Cinder feels like hunting them with the god-like powers granted by the Sanctum Ritual, she is more than welcome too."

"Why did we summon them again?" Cinder asked. 

"Well, we needed a manifestation of God," Oscar replied. "At the time, using Summer or Ruby's power for that seemed...unlikely. So we summoned a few demons we might be able to get some use out of. But...that didn't go anywhere. The book that allowed me to summon silver-eyed demons was taken by White after the summoning, and she burned it once she realized she'd get no information out of it. And as for using Red..." He grimaced. "That would not have gone anywhere. The demons summoned by the book are more powerful than average. We could not have forced her to help us."

"Why not just use the Amalgam's silver eyes?" Yatsuhashi asked, pointing at the Amalgam. 

"If I could incinerate people on command, I would have made liberal use of that power over the last twenty fucking years," the Amalgam growled. 

"It is diluted in her," Oscar explained. "Only a small fraction of her soul...s...have access to that power, and she doesn't have enough for the ritual. Besides, she only got use of that eye recently. That was done after the plan was already made."

That was also true. The Amalgam couldn't argue with that.

"Before we finish the job," Cinder interrupted. "I propose a toast."

"You are the only one drinking right now, but sure, go ahead," Oscar said with a slight smile. 

Cinder raised her glass, and the rest of them raised imaginary glasses. "To victory!"


	27. Pyrrha Nikos

Pyrrha sat down on the bench, Weiss crying into her shoulder. Winter sat on Weiss' other side, unsure of what to do. The hospital walls were stark white. A door opened, and a tired looking doctor stepped out of the room. 

"She will live," he said. "But...there's no fixing her eyes."

Weiss sobbed again. 

"In addition, a woman called in about you," he said. "Said she knew you. I...didn't know whether or not to trust that, given the circumstances." He nodded to Pyrrha's weapons. "Do you know a Raven Branwen?"

Something unsettled Pyrrha about that. Hadn't Raven been captured by Roman? Had she gotten out? She nodded to the doctor. "Send her up here," she said. "She's...her stepmother."

The doctor visibly flinched. "Ah. I'll call her, then." He nodded to the door. "You can go talk to her, but...she'll need some rest. Don't keep her awake if she wants to sleep."

The three women rose and walked into the room as the doctor walked off. Thankfully, the hospital hadn't been as empty as the other buildings they'd found. 

Ruby sat in a bed, a bandage wrapped around her eyes. She didn't look up as they entered. 

"Ruby?" Weiss sobbed. Ruby's head jerked up, looking in their direction. "Weiss?"

Weiss covered her mouth, stifling a sob. "I..." She rushed forward, hugging Ruby. "Ruby..."

"Weiss!" Ruby hugged Weiss tightly. "I'm glad you're okay."

"But you're not..." Weiss sobbed. Pyrrha walked over and put a comforting hand on Ruby's shoulder. Ruby's head turned to face Pyrrha. "Who's that?"

"It's me," Pyrrha said. "Winter's here as well, but the doctor left."

"Ah. Thanks." She grimaced. "Dammit, that's gonna get annoying quickly. Having to ask who all's in a room."

"I do believe that is the least bothersome thing about this," Winter muttered. 

Ruby somehow managed a smile. "It's the little things that always get you," she said. "Not the...you know..." She stopped smiling. Pyrrha hugged her tightly as a shadow passed over the doorway. Raven stepped into the room, and once again, Pyrrha was unsure of the emotion on her face. However, Pyrrha pulled out her gun and pointed it right at her as Roman Torchwick entered the room behind her. 

"Nice threat assessment," she commented. 

"You have five seconds to--"

"You know, when Roman said he could 'explain everything', I actually listened," Raven scoffed, walking around Pyrrha, ignoring the gun. She looked at Ruby, then reached out and lightly touched Ruby's cheek. 

Ruby grabbed the hand. "Raven? Is that you?"

"Yeah," Raven said quietly. 

Roman took off his hat. The pink-and-brown haired girl, Neo if Pyrrha remembered correctly, stood behind him, timidly looking out from behind Roman. "Good God," Roman said quietly. 

"Torchwick!" Ruby cried, jumping. Raven gently but firmly put a hand on her shoulder and set her back on the bed. "Ruby, he has no will to attack you. Despite some..." She glared at Roman. "...debatably intelligent choices, he was trying to help."

"How could kidnapping us possibly help anything?" Weiss said, with enough venom in her voice to kill someone. Probably, Roman, if she could have. 

"Roman?" Raven said, nodding to him. 

Roman nodded back. "Summer's made some...bad choices when it comes to running the country. No matter what else is done, she's...ah, hell, she's pissed off a lot of people." He took a seat in a nearby chair. "She's got a rebellion on her hands. I...I tried to warn her. That unrest was growing. That people were becoming unhappy. She ignored me." He grimaced. "A firefight's coming to her house, and I felt it best if I moved you kids out of harm's way."

"By kidnapping us?" Weiss said coldly. 

"As I said," Raven interrupted, "debatably intelligent. Roman had the right idea, in theory, but did the wrong thing. Which...had its consequences." She reached out and ruffled Ruby's hair. 

"Are you siding with hi--" Pyrrha was interrupted when Raven stepped over and embraced her. "Okay. You're...hugging me." Raven did _not _do hugs. She was not a hugging person.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she whispered. "When Roman said you were alive, I...I..." She tightened her grip. 

"Raven, you're...gonna break my ribs," Pyrrha muttered. 

Raven let go of her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked her in the eye. No one could have mistaken her smile for anything but happiness. "Sorry, Pyrrha. I get when...we last saw each other..." She paused. "I've made some mistakes, and of them all, there is none I regret more than the Amalgam. Know that, Pyrrha."

"What?" Ruby said. "What are you talking about?"

Raven took a deep breath, then sat on Ruby's bed, wrapping a hand around her and Weiss' shoulder. She grabbed Pyrrha's hand and pulled her over, as well. "You deserve to know. I put off telling all of you this...because its hard to talk about." She paused. "You know that I left Tai, but what you don't know is why. Yang was a year old, and I felt like the happiest woman in the world. Then, a demon attacked. It nearly killed Yang. I ended up with multiple broken bones trying to stop it, and I ended up with numerous scars from that one fight." She pulled up her shirt, revealing a set of three pale, up-and-down scars on her stomach. She lowered her shirt. "I quickly panicked. I couldn't protect my family. I needed to protect my family. So, I went out, looking for power." She let loose a tense breath. "Of course, demon bodyguards were among my first thoughts. Can't get much more powerful than that, can you?" She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "That thing's first spoken words were, 'kill me'. The Amalgam had just entered this world, and already wanted to die. Course, it came back, later. And at the time, I had no idea what it was. I recognized Yang's face. But the other three...I now know those to be you three. That's actually why I took an interest in Blake, when I saw her. And from passing quotes from the Amalgam and..." She shook her head. "...I learned about you, Pyrrha. So when I did come back, I found you four and hired you to protect them." She smiled. "But I figured you'd be more than bodyguards--you'd be friends."

"Did you ever find what you were looking for?" Ruby asked, leaning against Raven. 

"In a way." Raven held up her spare hand, lightning crackling along her arm. "I found an old shrine, devoted to some ancient god or whatever. I touched it, and...well, finding the thing took three years, and I spent the next four years as a bird." She laughed again. "I had been turned into a raven. Coincidentally, that's when I finally converted to Christianity, because no way in hell that would have happened unless some cruel God made it happen. I guess...it was a sort of punishment, for the Amalgam."

"Can you turn into a bird now?" Ruby asked, hugging Raven around her stomach. 

"Yeah, but I generally don't, especially when I can just grow a pair of wings," Raven said. "Easier flying like that."

"That must come in handy," Winter said, leaning down against the bed. 

"I bet you'd think so, but, no. Most fights I don't even remember the damn powers I spent five years trying to get. And when I do, it's generally against something that doesn't even warrant it. It's easier to just decapitate it."

"Did you have Amalgam-flashbacks when you saw Red and White and the others?" Weiss asked. 

"No, I was already used to it at that point," Raven answered. 

"Used to what?" Pyrrha asked. Before Raven could answer, a rhythmic hum filled the room. Pyrrha stood up, gun out, as miscellaneous pieces of metal lifted straight up into the air. 

"Is that...Polarity?" Roman frowned as he rose. "Demon Pyrrha's Semblance?" 

The wall behind Ruby lit up with a massive, glowing red rune. Raven picked up Ruby and Weiss and jumped away. Pyrrha and Winter each jumped backwards as well, just before the wall exploded. 

"Raaaaaven," a voice hissed. Four voices hissed. The Amalgam stepped through the hole, an all new level of nightmare. Its form had changed since Arvinum. "So nice that you're finally sharing, talking about yourself."

"I wanted to protect my family," Raven said, setting Ruby and Weiss down and standing up straight. "But you...you've never done anything but destroy and kill."

"Like you've done any better," the Amalgam snarled. For once, it wasn't smiling. Three mouths curled into nightmarish glares. "You've killed and destroyed just as much as I have."

"At least she's trying to be better," Weiss said, standing up. She grabbed a nearby lamp and threw it at the Amalgam. It shattered and bounced off. 

The Amalgam looked at her. "Ah, look. Her first impulse is to kill. I guess she takes after her mother."

Raven pulled out a sword, pointing it directly at the Amalgam. "You need to get out of my life. Get out of _their _lives!"

"I've never been after them; it's always been you," the Amalgam snarled. "Come now! Let's finish--" Raven stretched out a hand and a bolt of lightning struck the Amalgam. The Amalgam was thrown backwards through the hole it had made. 

"Roman, protect them," Raven said. "You've got danger inbound, and I suspect that that Oscar guy is a lot less trustworthy than you seem to think."

Roman nodded, putting his hat on as Raven rushed after the Amalgam. 

"What's going on?" Ruby cried out. 

"We're under--" Pyrrha was interrupted when her metal armor suddenly lifted into the air, and her with it. "What the--" The door did nothing to stop Pyrrha as she was thrown through it into the hallway. She hit the wall and fell to the ground at Ponytail's feet. 

"Hi," Pyrrha said. "You look...nice?"

"I will not allow you to take my memory of him," Ponytail snarled, grabbing the spear out of Pyrrha's hands. She rubbed it fondly, holding it like an old friend. Then she turned and gave Pyrrha a glare that put Weiss' glare to shame. 

Pyrrha started to move backwards, realizing exactly how bad a situation she was in. 


	28. Velvet Scarlatina

Velvet really wanted to know what the hell was going on. She and Coco had gone out, grabbing lunch. But then they saw the _Ixion _departing. They'd rushed back, only to find the Summer Home had burned to the ground. The news now declared Roman as a traitorous rebel, and they were having immense difficulty actually getting to talk to any of the royals. 

"Just tell them our names," she snapped. "Coco Adel and Velvet Scarlatina. I know Jaune Arc. He knows me."

The stubborn guard glared at them. "No one is getting in right now," he said. 

Before Coco could come up with more creative insults, the door behind him opened, and out stepped Jaune, who roughly grabbed the guard and shoved him aside. "Uh...Coco?"

"Finally," Coco said, slumping over. "We've been trying to get past Fuck-Nugget here for thirty minutes."

"What's going on?" Velvet exclaimed. "We were out at lunch, we saw the _Ixion _depart, and we drove all the way out to the Summer Home to find out what was going on, but no one was there, and it was burned down, and we came here, and that--that--that _bastard--_" Velvet pointed at the guard. "wasn't even going to mention us to you or anyone else on God's green earth, and Roman's a kidnapper now? What the hell is going on?"

Jaune had instinctively flinched back, but now said, "Uh...you might want to come in, and grab yourselves...a drink and a chair, cause this is going to take a bit. And as for _you--_" He pointed an accusatory finger at the guard. "You are in deep trouble, sir."

He lead Coco and Velvet inside the hotel. Summer Rose, the Queen herself, was standing over a table with her husband, Taiyang Xiao Long, and the demons, Yellow and White. White had one arm in a cast, and was in the middle of speaking. 

"--and, just like that, bypass the turrets and guns."

"That's a good fifth option," Taiyang replied. "But perhaps, our first try should involve not turning anyone inside out."

"That's only a minor risk."

"Wait a second," Yang said, jumping up from her seat at a nearby table. Blake followed seconds afterwards. "Aren't you two with Torchwick?"

"Whaddya mean, 'with' Roman?" Coco snapped back. "What the actual fuck is going on?" 

Summer got up from the table and walked over to them. Velvet stiffened into a salute, saying, "You're Majesty." She elbowed Coco, who snapped into proper military decorum. "You're Majesty."

Summer reached out and grabbed Velvet's right hand, examined it, then raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you know about what's happened?"

"Uh, nothing, really," Velvet said. "Your Majesty--"

"Call me Summer."

_Right. _"Summer, then, uh--damn, that feels weird." She looked at her gloved hand. "Are you going to let go now?"

"Your hand has Aura," Summer replied. "Only your hand, and only demons have Aura. Why does your hand have Aura?"

She'd noticed immediately. Of course someone with divine might would have noticed that quickly. 

"But first, what do you know of Roman and his plans?"

"Any plans he made he never told us," Coco said stiffly. Her hand had instinctively gone to her sword, but she had managed to restrain herself. "And as for the business of what went down at the Summer Home, we were hoping to find out here."

"Ah. Then you're on the good-guy side." Summer released Velvet's hand. "Take a seat. I'm afraid we didn't pick a very big hotel, so seating is limited." Velvet sat on the nearest table, Coco stood beside her. 

"Roman Torchwick kidnapped my daughters, Ruby and Weiss, and my friend, Raven. He set loose multiple uncontrolled demons in my house--including the Amalgam. I suspect him of being responsible for the carnage at Arvinum--and the death of my friend, Pyrrha." Summer looked at them. "Now. Your hand?"

"I can explain that," White said. "Her parents tried using her to summon a demon, when she was little, and really messed it up."

"Elaborate further," Summer said. "I have no experience with summoning demons, and no knowledge of how it works."

"Ah...most spells require ingredients. Healing spells often require herbs, shield spells require glass shards. Demon summoning requires a sort of dowsing rod--a way to tell the spell who you want. So her parents wanted a demon close to Velvet. Only, the didn't quite do the spell properly."

"...which could have been worse?"

"Have you ever seen a picture of the Amalgam?"

"I fought it once," Summer said. She sounded pained. 

"That's not too extreme of a case, from what the book I read said," White finished. "So, yeah, it could have been _way _worse."

"Roman's a kidnapper?" Coco asked. 

"Uh, hell yeah he is," Yang snapped. 

"After...after all his talk of peaceful negotiation," Coco muttered. Summer looked at her curiously. "He said that everyone would listen if you said the right words." She looked pissed. Velvet put a hand on her shoulder. Coco shook it off. "That goddamn son of bitch! He said...he said...to talk to her! That she'd listen to words!"

"I do believe I am the 'her' you're referring to?" Summer asked. Coco flinched, looking at her, then nodded. "I guess he finally found the right words then," Summer said quietly. She took a few steps, then lay down on a chair. "Red was right. I do cause all my own problems."

Coco looked at Velvet, who shrugged. "Uh, your Majesty?" Coco said. 

"Call me Summer. God only knows, I'm probably not going to be able to keep this damn crown much longer."

"Summer, then. The first step towards solving a problem is acknowledging that there is one," Coco told her. She sat on the back of the chair, reaching over and poking Summer. "So, that's step one done already."

"That does nothing when my daughters are in the hands of--off--" Summer buried her face in the wooden chair, screaming into her arm. "Damn it all! Dammit dammit dammit!"

Coco looked at Taiyang for backup. Taiyang came over, saying, "It will be fine. We just need to find a way onto the _Ixion _that doesn't involve turning anyone inside out."

"I keep telling you, the chance of that happening is actually very small--"

"Yeah, let's not risk it," Taiyang interrupted. 

"Its guns have a blind spot," Velvet blurted. Everyone looked at her. "It's, uh, something I noticed when I was with Roman one time. The guns can't rotate all the way around--but there's never been any real major fighting, so no one's gotten around to fixing it."

"How do we use that?" Summer asked, voice muffled by the chair. 

"If we fly up behind the _Ixion, _the guns will have a really hard time hitting us, and if we move in quickly enough, we can get right behind the guns. There's a window there that, all things considered, can be broken a bit too easily. It'll drop us right into the town." 

"And how easy is it to move from the town to the actual ship part?" White asked. 

"They have elevators, but they can cut the power," Coco said. "You'd need to take the stairs."

"There's a bridge, housings for the workers, engine room, gun room," Velvet said counting on her fingers. "And a lot more that I can't remember."

White and Taiyang shared a look. "It just might work," Yellow said. "Or at least, its more likely to work than an unfinished teleportation spell."

"Mostly finished," White stated, holding up a finger. Then, she dramatically grabbed the cast, ripped it off, and threw it to the side. "And it looks like my arm's healed enough for the battle."


	29. Pyrrha Nikos

When Roman had said Polarity, Pyrrha hadn't known what to think. 'Polarity' seemed to mean that Ponytail had control over metal. As Pyrrha was lifted into the air and slammed into a wall, Ponytail snarled, "You. You. _You._"

"Yeah, me," Pyrrha muttered. Ponytail jerked her hand aside, and Pyrrha flung into the wall on the opposite side of the room. She didn't appear to be able to do it too hard--which was lucky, as Pyrrha did not want to break any bones. That would hurt. 

"I'm not going to let you--" She was cut off by a loud bang, and she stumbled, rubbing her head. Pyrrha dropped to the ground, falling on hands and knees. 

"You are not helping anything," Roman said. His cane had turned into a sword and very large revolver. He fired a few more times. Red Aura deflected the bullets each time, but she stumbled backwards. Her Aura was apparently not as potent as the Amalgam's, or even Red's. Pyrrha jumped onto her back, wrapping her arms around Ponytail's throat, squeezing tightly. Ponytail's response was to use her Polarity to shove Pyrrha's armor. Pyrrha felt the tug of her armor being thrown, but didn't let go. So Ponytail hurled across the room with Pyrrha, and the two slammed into a wall. Roman charged forward, but stopped when a massive shape stepped in front of him. 

"I take it Oscar sent you two to kill us," Roman said flatly. 

"Nothing personal," the figure said with a shrug. 

"Neo?" Roman cried, stepping back. The man swung a sword, but Neo jumped in the way, using her umbrella as a shield. The sword bounced off, and the man stumbled back. 

"Have you been introduced to Yatsuhashi?" Roman asked Neo. 

"Swordsman," she replied. "He's the Swordsman, right?"

"Yup."

Yatsuhashi, as his name apparently was, rolled his shoulders, staring in confusion at the tiny girl, then at his sword massive sword. As the two began fighting, Roman rushed around them and went to help Pyrrha. 

Ponytail had gotten the idea to start repeatedly smashing Pyrrha into the wall behind her. Pyrrha grabbed her hair and yanked. Ponytail slammed her again, then staggered as Roman shot her. She pointed her gun at Roman and fired, but Pyrrha spun her weight around to throw her off balance. The shot went wide, and Roman stepped in, smashing Ponytail in the face with the hilt of his sword. Ponytail attacked with her spear(while using it like a sword) as Pyrrha rammed both her legs into the small of her back. Ponytail stumbled, off balance as Roman hit her again, and again, and again. 

Whatever else Pyrrha thought about Roman Torchwick, he was no joke. His attacks were timed perfectly, and he was _ruthless. _Ponytail's Aura absorbed blow after blow, but she was slowly getting bruises, and they didn't appear to be healing. Roman swung his sword at Ponytail's face, but she stretched out a hand, stopping it with her Semblance. Roman took the moment to hit her with his gun and boot her in the stomach. Ponytail staggered, then collapsed. Pyrrha pinned her to the ground, still trying to choke her unconscious. 

Roman put his boot on her head. "You can let go of her now," he said. 

"Now let's get the other guy," Pyrrha said, panting as she rubbed her shoulders. She looked up in time to see Yatsuhashi stumble and collapse to the ground, dropping two swords to the ground. A bunch of swords still floated right behind him, but they were motionless as Neo came over. 

"Is it over?" Ruby asked, stepping out of the hospital room. She stumbled, holding onto the wall, until Weiss came over and took her hand. 

"Yup," Roman said, twirling his cane. "Oscar could have chosen better."

"No...I can't fail," Ponytail cried. "I need to win! I need to beat--" She stretched out one of her hands, but Roman stabbed his hand through it and into the hospital floor. Black smoke leaked out of the ground. 

"I know already that Oscar sent you to kill us," Roman said. "What is he planning?"

"You--I need to win! I need to go home! I need to get back to him! I need to--"

Roman cut off her head. The blow was quick, precise. The corpse faded away into black smoke. 

"Holy shit, that's terrifying," Pyrrha said, shuddering. 

"I feel sorry for her," Roman said quietly, "but she attacked us, and was more than a little unhinged." He sighed, sheathing his sword. Demons didn't have blood, so he didn't need to wipe it off. His cane tapped against the ground as he walked over to where Yatsuhashi lay. 

"Do you plan on telling me your plans?" Roman asked. 

The large man looked up at him. "No," he decided. 

"Fair enough," Roman said, stabbing his sword through Yatsuhashi's chest. Purple ichor spread across the ground as well as black smoke. Only the smoke disappeared. 

"Ugh," Roman said, disgusted. "Yikes. That cannot be healthy."

"What's going on?" Ruby burst out. 

"Ah...demon Pyrrha and Yatsu came out and attacked us," Roman said. "They're dead now."

"Her weapons didn't disappear," Pyrrha said, picking up the spear. Or was it a sword? Now that she really looked at it, it could have been either. She traced a finger along the side, and then stopped. Checking her finger, she realized she'd cut herself. 

"Because she wasn't wearing them, and they aren't made out of whatever demons are made of." A loud clanging resounded through the hallway as Yatsuhashi's floating ring of swords fell to the ground. "Ruby, Weiss, take your pick," Roman offered. "You might need to defend yourselves later on."

"Pick of what?" Ruby asked. 

"Um...big swords?"

"YES."

Pyrrha smiled at that, then frowned as she studied the weapon. "Roman?"

"Yes?"

"She said...she needed to get back to 'him'."

"She was pulled from her home; she probably had a boyfriend she wanted to return to," Roman replied. The hospital shook. Raven walked out into the hallway, panting. "That was harder than expected," she said. She jabbed her sword behind her as the Amalgam lunged, impaling itself on her sword. It fell to the ground, disintegrating. Raven wiped a smear of blood off her cheek--as demons had no blood, Pyrrha assumed it was hers. 

"Are you alright?" Roman asked. 

"A few scrapes, but yeah," Raven said, sheathing her swords. "Ruby? Weiss?"

"Here," Weiss said. "We're fine. We didn't even fight that time." 

"Yeah, which is maybe for the best," Ruby said, waving the sword she'd picked up back and forth. Weiss gently grabbed her hand just before the sword reached her. With an embarrassed chuckle, Ruby added, "Yeah, I kind of need to be able to see my opponent."

"Says who?" Raven said. "I just finished off the Amalgam without looking at it." She walked over to Ruby, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You just need some practice. And to not lose any more important body parts."

Ruby chuckled. She reached up and touched the bandage around her eyes. Raven took her hand. "Hey. Things'll get better. And in case you don't understand, the person trying to kill us? Yeah, we just took out their assassins."

"Who's trying to kill us?" Winter asked, stepping out of the hospital room.

"Who are you?" Raven asked, pointing at Winter. 

"Winter Schnee," Roman said. "Yes, ex-military combatant..." He spun on Winter, then pointed to Weiss. Winter nodded. Roman pointed to Winter, then to Weiss. Winter nodded again. "Well, that's one mystery solved," Roman said. 

Raven raised an eyebrow. "She's Weiss' family," Roman explained. 

"Ah. Welcome to the fam."

"I was in the family before you," Winter said with a raised eyebrow. "It's my family."

"Don't care," Raven replied. "Oh my God, Pyrrha! You alright?"

"I'm fine," Pyrrha said. "I mean, right now I'm bruised in places I don't know the anatomical name for." She laughed, the coughed. "Seriously, though, it's a good thing we're literally standing in a hospital."

"That's ferrokinetics for you," Roman said. 

"What?" Ruby asked. 

"Person who can control metal," Weiss explained. 

"We have a car outside," Roman said. "We can take it up to the ship-part of the _Ixion._"

"What's it called?" Ruby asked. 

"It has a technical name, but I never remember or care about it," Roman said. "C'mon, Neo."

"Are we really trusting him?" Pyrrha asked Raven quietly. 

"You trusted me," Raven replied, equally quietly. She added, "And, besides. I never would have said yes to that first date if he didn't have a good heart."

Pyrrha nodded slowly. "Do you know what 'Arkos' is?"

Raven looked at her. "No. What do you mean?"

Pyrrha looked at the spear. "This is of a different make than my spear. I feel...like something important was up with it." She eyed Raven. "Speaking of important, I...it sounded like you were about to say something, before the attack. During the...talk...about the Amalgam?"

Raven stiffened. 

"Is there...something more you'd like to say?"

"No."

"Is that, nothing to say, or nothing you'd like to say?"

"A little of both," Raven whispered, walking down the hallway. 

_"You trusted me." _

Pyrrha hesitated, then followed everyone else out of the hospital. 


	30. Ruby Rose

Visions of pain. Searing pain. All-consuming pain. Screaming. More screaming. _Make the pain stop. _

"Ruby?" 

Ruby was sweating when she awoke. Weiss' comforting presence was next to her, holding onto her shoulders. Ruby's heart was beating fast, and it took all the will she had to tell herself, _Calm down. Just a nightmare. _

The nightmare that was also a memory.

"I'm fine," she forced herself to say. "Just...a bad dream."

"You need anything?" Raven asked. Ruby remembered back to them loading into Roman's car--he'd be driving, with Neo next to him, Ruby and Weiss in the back, and that left Raven and Pyrrha in the middle. There! Who needed sight when you had logic?

...actually, she still wanted her eyeballs back. 

"No," she told Raven. "I'm fine."

Raven was silent. 

Ruby leaned back against the car seat. Roman's car had a distinct smell--of coffee and leather and...cigarette? Ruby felt in between the seats, and pulled out something...small and cigarette-shaped. "What's this?" she asked. 

"A cigar," Weiss said. "Uh, Roman, do you smoke?"

"Never once have," Roman said. He sounded confused. "Those thing's'll eat your lungs and spit 'em back out. It must have been...Norse."

"Who's Norse?" Ruby asked, twirling the cigarette. 

"My worthless, good-for-nothing brother," Roman said irritably. Ruby assumed, given the context, that he was angry at Norse, and not her. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me _twice__, _dammit--"

"Roman," Raven chided. 

"You know how I feel about Norse, Ray," Roman said. 

"'Ray'?" Ruby said with a snicker. 

"Just Roman's dumb nickname for me," Raven explained with a sigh. "And I'm sure he had his reasons, Roman."

"Sure, sure. Everyone's always been telling me, 'I'm sure he had his reasons'. 'He clearly had a plan'. But no. That...he lied to me, Ray. The borrowing money--that I was fine with. But then...he said 'good cause'. Maybe if I'd asked which good cause I'd have exposed the damn lie. That worthless bastard went, took my charity, and summoned a demon with it."

"He didn't seem too bad when I talked to him," Neo piped in. 

"You...you didn't see him at his worst," Roman told her. "I'd always told him that the cigarettes would kill him. Kind of funny that I was wrong."

There was silence in the van. "Did the walk to the town take this long?" Ruby asked incredulously. 

"We're not driving to the elevator," Roman said. "Oscar can cut the power off when we're high up and drop us to our deaths. And the stairs could be guarded by my senile grandma with a mop. No, we're taking another entrance."

"What other entrance?" Pyrrha asked. 

"Through the prison," Roman said. 

"The prison?" Weiss asked. 

"Yeah. The _Ixion's _main purpose is to capture and contain demons--not all are evil, and not all stay evil," Roman explained. "So, until they get better, that's where we put them. But the prison has a back entrance--not exactly a secret, but labeled as 'not important'. Oscar won't know its there. He'll never see us coming!"

Ruby considered joking that she'd also never see it coming, but decided against it. Instead she asked, "So, what do we do?"

"Stay hidden," Raven said. "You and Weiss need to hide. Pyrrha, protect them."

"Uh, I'm gonna disagree with that one," Roman interrupted. "Pyrrha's actually a really skilled fighter. If we're hunting Oscar, I think we ought to bring her with us. Neo can protect the kids."

"I can?" Neo asked. "Uh, yeah. I can!"

"What? No! That's why Pyrrha needs to guard the kids!" Raven exclaimed. 

"Um..." Pyrrha interjected. A moment's silence fell over the car, broken only by the gentle hum of the engine. "If I am as good as you say, shouldn't I be where people are actually fighting the big bad guys? The tough ones?"

"Besides, Neo has a Semblance that fits the situation perfectly," Roman said. 

"Wait. What do you mean, Semblance?" 

"She's a duplicate," Roman explained. "Like Red and White and the others. Norse...summoned her."

"Yeah, and then I found Roman," Neo added. "So, everything's better!"

She sounded absolutely sure of herself. Ruby didn't want to argue with her. "So what's her Semblance?"

"An advanced form of illusions," Roman explained. "Including making people invisible. If you want to keep someone safe, and hidden, she's the better bet."

Ruby could practically hear Raven thinking it over. "Fine," she consented. 

"Raven, Pyrrha, and I need to head up to the bridge," Roman said. "From there, I can rally my fighters--and if Oscar has taken over, as the radio silence would imply, that's where we'll find him. And as for you three--"

"Find a spot to hide," Raven immediately said. 

"Raven, there are no safe places," Roman said. "Yes, try to stay hidden. But find out information. We're going in blind. You can use your radio to talk to us."

"Right," Neo agreed. "Um...okay." She sounded sad. 

"Neo, there's a lot going on right now. You can't stay by my side forever, you know."

"Says who?"

"Says my personal space," Roman said. "You'll have to branch out, talk to other people eventually."

"No I don't," Neo said, sounding put out. Ruby imagined her folding her arms over her chest. 

Roman sighed. "Whatever. Let's get this done."


	31. Yang Xiao Long

Gunfire. Low whistling. Explosions.

Sounds that probably should have meant a lot more to Yang. Instead, as the large jet lowered into the center of a city, all that mattered was getting her family back. They strode out of the jet, into a ghost town. A dark smog covered the road. Yang raised her broadsword as she waded through waist-high smog. 

"Where the hell is everybody?" Coco asked, raising her cutlass. Velvet looked around. "This place...was full of people." She turned around. "What the fuck happened to that hospital?"

"It's still smoking," Summer said. "People could be in there." She looked around, biting her lip. "Shit. Yang, we need to scout that out, no matter what else we do."

"I'll go," Yang said. 

"You and Blake...Coco and Velvet, you four head over there. Call if you need backup." Summer looked off. In the distance was an elevator up to the command bridge, with staircases right beside it. She began walking off. "Ren and Nora, Frederick and Samson, you four guard the ship. Anyone tries to get access, stop them."

The smog persisted up to the hospital. A large hole was in the roof, which was billowing smoke. A car sat in front of it, and a tall man in a white coat stood by it. 

"Hello?" Yang cried. "What happened here?"

The man turned to the group, then back to the hospital. "Demons. I think. I...wasn't in the room when it happened." He opened his car door. "If I'd have realized something that big was after them, I'd have called the cops," he muttered. "I'm too damn old for this."

Yang put her hand on the hood of his car. "Something was after who?" she asked suspiciously...but hopefully. 

"A group of girls...and...their mother, I guess? I don't know. She looked like the white-haired one." He raised an eyebrow. "Who are you, and who are you looking for?"

"I'm Yang Xiao Long," Yang said. The man stared for a second, then gave a polite nod. "Your highness."

"I'm looking for my sister. Ruby Rose. Black hair. Silver Eyes and a red hood. You seen her?"

"Red hood, black hair?" the doctor asked. "Silver eyes? Then you must not know about the--" The car flipped over. All of a sudden, it flipped into the air, sailing over Yang, smashing into a building on the opposite side of the road. Yang followed it with her eyes, then looked back at the hospital. A figure in black armor stepped out of the double doors. 

"Where is she," Pyrrha snarled. "She took him! I need to find her! I need to get him back!"

"Demon Pyrrha," Blake said. 

"Yikes," Coco said. "That woman's got some baggage."

Pyrrha looked at them. "Where'd she go? She took him! She took him! I need to get him back! I need to--"

"Calm yourself," another voice said. A figure stepped out of the doorway after her, wearing a dark brown robe. 

"And that's the other one," Blake said, stepping back, sword ready. 

"Do you have any weapons?" Yang asked Velvet. 

"I can punch things," Velvet said, spinning her shoulder around. 

"A punch isn't going to hurt a demon," Yang pointed out. 

"You haven't seen me punch yet," Velvet replied. 

"How did you get here?" Yatsuhashi asked, a ring of swords appearing behind him. He looked back at the ring. "Who took my swords?"

"She...that bitch took him! Again!"

"You really need to calm down," Yatsuhashi told her. "We have opponents here to fight us. You ready for battle? You just reformed--it's been a few hours."

Pyrrha raised a hand. Several nearby cars lifted straight into the air. 

"I'm' calling back-up," Blake whispered, pulling out a phone. 

"Good thinking," Yang said, retreating back a few steps. 

Pyrrha jerked her hand, and the cars shot towards Yang. But someone intercepted them. A figure in red smashed down, knocking the car aside. Standing up, she lifted a massive scythe into the air before turning to face Yang. 

"How did you get here?" Red exclaimed. 

"How did you get here?" Yang cried. 

"Teleportation spell," Red stated. 

"The one White mentioned?" Yang asked. "Didn't she say it could turn you inside out?"

"If you don't have Aura," Red replied. 

"Right." Yang looked past her to Pyrrha and Yatsuhashi. 

"The Swordsman?" Black asked, stepping up beside Red. 

"Guess now we have to fight the guy," Red said. She turned to Yang. "You guys gonna help? He's tough."

"Yeah," Yang said, raising her sword. "Let's do this."

Yatsuhashi sighed, then raised his hood over his face, striding forward with a sword in each hand. 

"He's not supposed to hurt us, right?" Blake asked. "That's what they said, and they seemed pretty mad at the Amalgam for attacking us. Right?"

"I wouldn't bet any money it," Red suggested. She leapt aside as Yatsu swung a sword. The sword clanged against the ground, and Yang leapt in, striking him in the head with her broadsword. It bounced off. The Swordsman staggered backwards. Yang and Blake rushed forward, attacking with fury. The Swordsman blocked, stepping back and back. Then, he attacked with both his swords, sweeping Yang and Blake aside. As Yang blocked the sword that passed mere inches from her face, she thought to Red's advice. 

Coco lunged in-between Yang and Blake, stabbing the Swordsman directly. The Aura deflected the attack, but the Swordsman stumbled back, swords ready in a blocking stance. Yang stepped back with Blake and Coco as Velvet stepped up beside them, one hand pulling on the glove slightly. 

Yang grinned. "Had enough?"

The Swordsman straightened, without saying a word. He gave his right hand an experimental swing, then stepped forward. 

The four girls stepped back. Except for Velvet. 

"I don't know what you're trying to do," Velvet said, "but I won't let you hurt any more people."

The Swordsman stepped forward and attacked, but Velvet blocked. 

With her gloved hand. 

The sword shattered, steel scattered everywhere. The Swordsman stumbled backwards, holding up the hilt of his sword, then tossed it aside and reached to grab another one. 

"No!" Yang cried, slamming her sword into his side. He staggered, swinging at her. Yang ducked, but lost a strand of hair to the blade. Grabbing the fallen hair, she held it up, crying, "Oh, come on! Really?"

Blake landed on top of his head, pulled his hood over his eyes, then leapt behind him, through the ring of swords, snagging a smaller one and pulling it aside. Fixing his hood, he turned to face her before Coco slammed into the back of his legs. He stumbled over backwards, falling on his back, but was just as quickly on his feet. He grabbed Coco, a purple tentacle wrapping around her throat and shoulder. 

"Put her down!" Velvet bellowed, jumping and slamming her fist into the Swordsman's stomach. Coco was dropped as the Swordsman slid backwards along the ground, slamming into the hospital wall, dropping his sword. Yatsuhashi's face glared from beneath the hood as Velvet helped Coco to her feet. 

The Swordsman pulled out two more swords. 

"Let's finish this," Yang said. She leapt forward, dodging his attack and stabbing him through the chest. Blake's and Coco's blades joined hers moments later. Purple ichor sprayed over the girls as the Swordsman faded into black smoke. His last words were, "Hmm."

"Yuck." Yang wiped the goo off her face. "Well, that's over."

A car slammed into the ground behind her. 

"Right. Pyrrha."

"Why are there never duplicates of people we don't know?" Blake asked. 

"I dunno, but this is going to be one hell of an autobiography," Yang said with a sigh. As she turned around, a bright flash of silver light lit up her vision. Rubbing her eyes, she looked up to see Pyrrha standing there, a smoking hole in her chest, looking utterly stunned. Several floating cars dropped to the ground. 

Red glowed. A brilliant red-and-silver circle lit the ground around her, and two wings of light came from her eyes, one silver, the other a deep red. The light faded as she said, "I don't have time for this," and turned around. "Sorry, old friend."

Pyrrha faded into smoke. 

"You could have done that at any point?" Yang demanded. 

She fell to the ground, being caught by Blake. 

"Yeah," Red answered. "But...that's gonna hurt for a week." Her hand reached up and covered the face plate. "Oooooh, yeah."

"You need help?" Yang asked, feeling bad. She grabbed the fallen bit of hair and tied it to her sword hilt. Grinning, she showed her trophy to Red. 

Red looked at it, then sniggered. "Yeah, that's about what I expected."

Yang glared at her. 

"Are White and Yellow with you?" Red asked. 

"Yeah," Yang told her. "You...want to talk to her?"

Red stood up, looking away. "Yeah."

"C'mon," Yang said, pointing to where the jet was. "I...you're sister is within talking distance. Go talk to her. Then we'll continue going and getting my sister back within talking distance."

She was hurting. But every pain stopped eventually. Ruby and Weiss and Raven...they would come back. Pyrrha was dead. Yang needed to move on. Her sisters and mother would live. They had to. 


	32. Raven Branwen

"We have a problem," Roman said. "Oscar did get guards for the back entrance. And they're big."

  
Raven looked through the doorway. A massive walkway went through into the prison, almost twenty feet across. It went and looped around a long tower. Raven noted prison cells along the way. 

But standing roughly ten meters from the door were two massive people. Or, they looked like people. But huge. She gauged them at fifteen feet each, solid stone all the way. Their chests were normally proportioned, but their stomachs were thin, almost wires. They had broad shoulders, but the arms thinned out going to the elbow, then widened out again as they came to the hands--each of which had two fingers and a thumb. Their legs were the same--wide waist, thinning until the knees, and widening out once more to the legs, which had no toes. They had no mouths or ears or noses, just two red eyes apiece. 

And both had a large, red gem in their chest. 

"Golems," Roman said. 

"What's a golem?" Ruby asked. 

"Those," Roman said. He paused, then looked back at Ruby. "Ah...you know how demons aren't flesh and blood?"

"I don't like where this is going," Ruby said, pointing at where she assumed Roman was. Raven lightly moved her finger so it was pointing the right direction. 

"Well, someone adapted some of Salem's spells to fight demons," Roman said. "Instead of creating bodies out of...well, dark magic and nightmares, bodies out of stone and metal and gem. Unlike demons, they don't have minds--they just obey orders given. And Oscar made these two." Roman grimaced. 

"Well, can't you just, y'know, beat 'em up?" Ruby asked. "Raven can shoot lightning."

"If I spent thirty minutes blasting them with bolt after bolt, I might be able to melt one," Raven said. "But, Ruby, they're made of stone. Stone doesn't conduct electricity. And they aren't made up of tons of vital organs."

"And they're sword-proof," Roman added. "If we had a very big hammer, or, perhaps, some sort of magical attack?"

"I could try," Ruby said. "I mean, I've summoned a few tiny bolts before." She rubbed her head. "Maybe I could..."

" 'Maybe' isn't enough," Roman said. "If we fight the golems, we need to go in, knowing we can win. We need to know you can shoot bolts large enough to take them down. We need to know that that would even work in the first place. We need to know you're fast enough to kill them before they..." He trailed off. "They do use sight, so Neo's Semblance can sneak us past them. But we're going to split up soon. Neo, you know you're way around?"

"Yeah," Neo said, looking around the doorway at the golems. She still didn't seem to like being separated from Torchwick. Raven wondered at the connection from her world--father figure? Teacher? Friend?

"The golems are hard to make, and you can't control many at a time," Roman said. "Bonus, demons can't control them, so, yeah. I count four from where we stand...Oscar can control about six. Hmm...we separate after the second group."

"Got it," Pyrrha said, raising her weapons. "So, do we need to do anything?"

"I made you invisible the moment we got up to the door," Neo stated. "As long as you're close, and I'm conscious, it should work."

"Really?" Pyrrha looked at her hands. "I don't...look invisible."

"Uh...no. That's cause you _are _invisible," Neo stated. "Duh."

"Get your facts straight, Pyrrha," Roman said. "C'mon. Let's go." He turned to Neo. "We _are _actually invisible?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Sorry, but your Semblance hasn't always been...consistent."

"Well, I'm not going through any severe emotional trauma right now, so it should be fine," Neo said. 

Raven blinked at that, but decided not to comment on it. They entered the room, walking right up to and right past the Golems. They didn't even look up. 

"You really oughta work on your security," Raven told Roman, "considering we literally walked right into the place."

The second group of golems came into view--quite a bit up the walkway. Raven looked straight up, past the spiral walkway and up to the roof. 

She couldn't see it. 

The _Ixion _also didn't have any massive towers or spires, so the tower was inside a bigger dome. Raven briefly wondered where the other two golems were. Then she noticed the first cell. 

The demon inside was small and lithe, with multiple insectoid legs coming off its back. Its jaws were massive mandibles, and a spiked tail came off its back. It had no eyes, but it seemed aware of its presence. It hissed at them as they passed. 

She smiled maliciously at it. It scuttled backwards, still hissing. 

After the second pair of golems was an elevator. Roman turned to Ruby and Weiss and said, "This is where we split up. The elevator runs straight up to the bridge, where Oscar is most likely going to be. You three...there are multiple storage rooms full of documents--but plenty of hiding places. And Oscar's room. It should be empty right about now--go see if he ever wrote down anything important."

"If you see him, _run__,_" Raven told them. She did not like the fact that they were going to be wandering around this place. She didn't feel safe about it. Everything she did was to protect them. But here lately she hadn't done a very good job of that. Pyrrha could have gotten killed. Ruby and Weiss, Blake and Yang--everyone she loved could have been killed. 

So she'd trust Roman's judgement. His judgement didn't seem perfect, but neither did hers. Pyrrha stepped into the elevator with Roman and Raven as Raven told Neo, "Keep them safe."

"Okay. You keep Roman safe," Neo replied. 

Raven nodded. Roman bristled at the exchange, but stayed silent as the elevator doors closed. Raven let loose the breath she'd been holding, covering her face with her hands. 

Control had been seized from her. Once again, her children's safety was in other people's hands. Roman put a comforting hand around her shoulder. Pyrrha looked away awkwardly. Raven wished she could have been there for Ruby during the banshee attack. But now she needed to take on Oscar. If he was as magically adept as Roman seemed to believe, then Raven needed to fight him. So that her family would finally be safe.

And yet...

And yet. 

"You might want to take a seat," Roman said. "The elevator can go fast, and only so fast before its dangerous. And it happens to be a long way up to the bridge."

This elevator was like the one into the city--glass doors and walls, so they could look out at the prison as they passed. Raven sat down in a lotus position. Pyrrha stood, but leaned against the wall. Roman sat beside Raven, sprawling out. 

"How many of these cells are full?" Pyrrha asked. 

"Hundreds," Roman said. "It's a legit nightmare trying to keep track of them all. I have most of them divided into columns--up and down--with different people managing this much of this column. Whenever a demon has good behavior, we try...reintegrating it into our forces. Pyrrha...ahem...demon Pyrrha..."

"I just call her Ponytail," Pyrrha replied. 

"...right. Well, Ponytail, when she was first summoned, had a complete mental breakdown. Practically threw a tantrum--which is bad, considering she's a ferrokinetic. But after some time to cool it in a cell, we released her and she was actually pretty nice."

Pyrrha flinched. "But...she's dead now. It seemed...like she wanted to go home."

"Um..." Roman looked at Raven. "We didn't tell her, did we?"

"Ponytail and the Swordsman are as immortal as the Amalgam," Raven stated. 

Pyrrha stood up, hands falling to her side. "What?"

"The full story is long and complicated," Roman said. "But...something about how they were summoned..." He shook his head. "It was a while back. It has something to do with Velvet's parents. They...were doing something. Something very bad."

"Does Velvet know?" Pyrrha asked. "I mean, I don't know her too well, but she was pretty nice."

"Ah...no. She hasn't ever even met those two, and I don't know enough about the situation to try explaining it," Roman said. "One day, I might actually figure everything out. But that's not today."

"What's the plan?" Pyrrha asked. 

"Full of questions, aren't you?" Roman asked with a tired chuckle. "We don't know who we're fighting. We have no back-up. No knowledge of what our enemy is capable of, or what they've already done. In all honesty, it's not a hundred percent clear if it's Oscar we're fighting."

"This is a suicide run, isn't it?" Pyrrha asked. 

"I have no plans to die today," Raven interrupted. "If I die, Ruby and Weiss will die. If I go down, Ruby and Weiss will go down. I have dedicated this last decade of my life to protecting them. I. Will. Not. Fail." She looked up at Pyrrha. "No, this is not a suicide run. Is the risk high? Yes. It wouldn't surprise me if this is where I died." She paused. "But no. I do not want to die today."

Pyrrha nodded slowly. A low ding echoed around the elevator, as it slid to a stop, the view of the prison being replaced by two metal doors. 

Roman stood up, unsheathing his sword and pistol. "We're here."


	33. Neo Politan

Neo had been to several of these offices before. Roman usually went down there once a day. Every filing cabinet, every rack, every desk, every computer--all were in there familiar places. 

_Thud. _"Ow. Wall."

"Quiet," Neo hissed, looking back at the two golems. They hadn't heard. The elevator was quite a distance away, from the golems, of course. But Neo was jumpy. She'd rarely been without Roman since she'd been summoned. She was aware that he wasn't 'her' Roman Torchwick. But he had the same heart. He'd taken in the same small, frightened girl with her mother's umbrella. 

"Sorry," Ruby whispered, rubbing her head. 

Neo bit her lip. The last thing she was going to do was spend her time comforting Ruby Rose. She was still mad at her--even if this wasn't 'her' Ruby. After all, shouldn't Ruby have the same heart here as back on Remnant? Black had acted mostly the same, during their encounter in the woods. Neo had never been frightened of them before. But being summoned--that had changed everything. Everything that normally seemed safe now held danger. What if she ended up alone again?

The three of them snuck into the next room, Weiss leading Ruby along. It was somewhat comforting to know that Ruby had suffered--after all, she had made Roman suffer, back home. 

Oscar's room. Neo opened the door, stepping in. The room had been decorated carefully--anyone who entered either backtracked immediately, or tried hard to forget. The room was half normal--a messy bed, a nightstand with an empty photo frame. Several coats lay on the ground--_who could possibly need that many copies of the same coat?_\--as well as a bed-sheet. Then, there was his twin's half the room. 

Neo was aware that the two souls sharing a body would both have their own tastes and standards, but the second half of the room looked like it had been copied-and-pasted from a horror movie and badly Photoshopped until it was PG-13. The wallpaper looked like human skin, the bed had bones sticking out of it, and black strands hung from the ceiling like the web of a schizophrenic spider. Those strands were made of the same substance demons were made of, Neo knew. She'd once asked Oscar what Salem was like. 

_"Imagine hating the very concept of life," _he'd replied. _"And then being made unable to die."_

She hadn't asked about Salem again. 

"Good grief," Weiss whispered. 

"What is it?" Ruby asked. She looked around the room--a rather pointless gesture, Neo thought--and asked, "What is this room?"

"Oscar's bed room," Neo said with a grimace. "He's two souls in one body, and they sort of--and only sort of--take turns. Sometimes he sleeps in one half of the room, sometimes the other half. He's pretty random about it."

"Are you going to explain what you meant by that?" Weiss asked. 

"Nope," Neo said, striding into the room with confidence. She walked and checked under the normal bed, and reached her hand beneath it, and felt a heartbeat. Instinctively, she jumped backwards, her own heart beating fast. Taking a calming breath, she again reached beneath it and pulled out a violin. Made out skin, the strings appeared to be made out of human muscles, and it had a heartbeat. Suppressing(and failing) a shudder, she slid the violin aside and continued digging beneath the bed. "Socks...shoes...more green coats?" Glaring at the coat with righteous fury, she tossed it aside before finally finding a threadbare rucksack. Triumphant, she sat on the bed and pulled out Oscar's computer. "Let's hope his computer's more organized than his bed," Neo said with a confident grin. 

It wasn't. 

Neo's grin slowly faded as she watched the computer lag its way to hell and back, desktop icons slowly beginning to cover the entire screen. "Do you know what folders are?" Neo burst out. "Does he even play Rimworld?"

"We did, once, but it wasn't that good," Oscar said from the doorway. 

Neo barely managed to avoid jumping into the air--a feat Ruby and Weiss failed at. The two stumbled backwards, pointing a sword at Oscar. Oscar walked into his room, cane tapping against the ground. "You know, it is so rude to just break into people's rooms like this. But, then again, we lost the right to complain a while ago."

"Do you have anything in this room that isn't made of skin?" Neo asked. 

"...Salem has some unique tastes in decor," Oscar answered vaguely. 

"Good to know," Neo said. She closed the laptop. "So...how ya doing?"

"You touched our violin," Oscar growled. 

Neo forced an awkward laugh. 

"It is a personal item," Oscar said, pushing a button on his cane. A violin bow popped free of its wooden case as he swished it like a sword. Neo jumped to her feet, pointing her umbrella at Oscar. 

"You have long outstayed your welcome," Oscar said. 

"You tried to murder us," Neo pointed out. 

Oscar cocked his head to the side, seemingly considering the statement. "True," he conceded. "But, Pyrrha didn't seem to do a good job of that, did she? What's that maxim people quote? 'If you want it done right' and all?" He smiled. "Ah, a fight. It has been a while."

Neo lunged, attacking. He parried her umbrella, slashing with his violin bow. She stepped back, blocking with her umbrella and stepping forward, attacking. This time she hit him in the head, and he stepped back, no longer smiling. "Ah. We see."

The next attack was impossibly fast--but Neo somehow managed to block--or, attempt to, in any case. Umbrella or no, she flung backwards, Oscar's wooden bed breaking beneath her fall. As well as the computer. 

Somehow that hurt more than the blow. 

Neo was up again as Oscar rushed her, attacking with his violin bow. Neo parried a few times, then kicked him in the stomach. Neo stepped forward, attacking viciously. Oscar blocked with his bow, and the two's faces were inches away from each other. 

"You're pretty tough," Neo said. "And I haven't even used my Special Attack."

"Special Attack?" Oscar said with a raised eyebrow. 

Neo pushed a button on the umbrella, extending it. The umbrella's canopy slammed into him, knocking him backwards as Neo unsheathed the rapier from her umbrella. 

"En guarde!" she cried, pointing the blade at him. She lunged, jabbing with the blade. He stabbed the bow through her hand and twisted it, pulling her hand to the side. The rapier flung to the side, Neo staggered to a halt as Oscar held the bladed bow to the side. Pain crawled up her arm as she flinched. 

"There," Oscar said. "Now. Where is Torchwick?"

"You don't know where he is?" Neo asked. "A little...unprofessional of you, isn't it?"

Oscar snarled at her. There was something inhuman and animalian about it. "Let us repeat ourselves. For every time you don't answer us, we will kill one of the kids."

That gave Neo a start. Roman had ordered her to protect them. So she needed to. But she couldn't let Oscar find Roman. Panic flooded her. What did she do? 

She glared at Oscar. "I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but you couldn't do that with a mirror and an instruction manual," she snapped. "Like hell I'm giving away Roman like that."

Oscar's look betrayed that he was _not _happy. "Alright then. How about..."

"RUN!" Neo screamed at Weiss and Ruby. The two began running out the door, but Oscar shot out a blast of red light. The two were thrown apart, and Weiss cried, "Keep going! I'm right behind you!"

Ruby managed to get out the door and start running--catching herself on the doorway and turning down a hallway. Oscar stretched out his spare hand, and several black hands reached out of the ground and grabbed Weiss, lifting her into the air, holding her mouth shut. 

"Let us ask one more time," Oscar said. "If you do not tell us where Roman is, we will kill her in the most brutal way possible."

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Neo said with a malicious grin. 

Oscar appeared genuinely confused. "You actually don't care if we kill her," he said. "Well then. We'd better not waste our hostages." A red rune appeared around his wrist. "Go to sleep."


	34. Ruby Rose

Ruby's run came to a slow stop, as she panted, "Weiss...wait up. I...I gotta stop." She felt along the railing, feeling her way up, then plopping down. "Is...is he coming up after us?" She felt bad leaving Neo behind--but Neo had told her too, hadn't she? Ruby wasn't the kind of person to refuse to let anyone help her. But she still felt bad running away and leaving someone else behind. 

She looked up, an inevitably pointless act, all things considered. "Weiss? Are...are you there?"

A slight pause. "Yeah," Weiss's voice came from her left. Ruby turned, pulling herself up to standing position. 

"Thank God," Ruby said. "For...for a second there I was worried." She took a few steps, still following the railing. "Where are we now? I mean, are we still in the prison, or..."

"What happened to your eyes?" Weiss asked. 

Ruby stopped, turning to look where the voice came from. A habbit that would be difficult to break, and inevitably pointless. "Um...Weiss? What do you mean by that? Weren't you there when..."

When it had happened. Shoving the flashbacks aside, she frowned at the location of the speaker. Or at least, she assumed it was where the speaker was. 

"I believe," Weiss said, "there has been a misunderstanding." 

Ruby took a few steps forward, then found Weiss' hand. She grabbed it. "What are you talking about? Weiss?"

"I am not your Weiss," four voices said in unison.

Ruby stopped. Four speakers? But...it all sounded like it came from the same spot. 

"Weiss...?" Ruby said hesitantly. 

"...I believe Raven has been calling us 'Amalgam'," the voices answered. Ruby let go, stumbling backwards. "What did you do with Weiss?" Ruby cried. "If you hurt her, you'd better pray that God has more mercy than I do!"

"You were the only one to come up here," the Amalgam replied. Heavy footsteps shook the walkway.

Ruby stumbled and fell to her knees. "What...what do you mean?" she asked. But she already knew. Weiss had said she'd be right behind her. But she got caught. She hadn't cried out, and Ruby had kept on running. Running away. 

Was that what a queen was supposed to do? Run away? 

A soft, almost delicate hand touched Ruby's face, lifting it up and turning it. "What happened to your eyes?"

She'd left Weiss behind. Tears crept from beneath the blindfold--she wasn't sure how she was crying if she didn't have eyes. But it didn't matter. "I...left her."

"Your...eye? S?" the Amalgam said hesitantly. 

"Weiss," Ruby said, choking back a sob. 

"...Now this is awkward," the Amalgam said, letting go of Ruby. More footsteps. Was it walking away? No, they stopped. "What do we do? We don't know where Weiss is. And Oscar would not want us finding her--he'd want us to get rid of the intruder. But we can't leave her like this! I know! And what the hell happened to her eyes? Was that what Oscar had? That would make sense. But if we get her reunited with her love, then Oscar will get rid of us. If he gets rid of us, we won't be able to kill Raven." The chorus of voices suddenly stopped. More footsteps, then the creaking of metal. Ruby reached out, touching a face. The Amalgam appeared to be leaning down in front of her. 

"Does Raven love you?" the Amalgam asked. 

Ruby was confused at the question. "What?"

"Does she love you? Are her words empty, or full? Loving, or uncaring?" A pause. "Hatred or love?"

Ruby shook herself out of her trance. "Um...she loves me," she said. "And by God, I know she doesn't hate me. She's been through a lot for my sake. It seems like it would be a lot of effort to go through for someone you hate."

Tears dropped on her hand that touched the Amalgam's face. "Um..." Had she made it cry? What had she even said?

It hugged her. "Thank you," it whispered. "Thank you."

"Um...you're welcome?"

"You were looking for Weiss?" the Amalgam asked. "She is probably back the way you came." She felt herself being lifted up, then put on the Amalgam's back. Something that felt half like fabric, half like cold steel wrapped around her, holding her so she wouldn't fall. She wrapped her hands around the Amalgam's neck. "Comfortable?" it asked. 

"Um...sure?"

The Amalgam laughed. "Not emotionally, though?" it said. "Until recently, you wouldn't have caught me doing this for you. You got lucky."

"Um...yay." Ruby paused. The Amalgam started moving, heavy footsteps banging against the metal as she bobbed up and down. "Why are you doing this? I thought you hated Raven."

"I do," the Amalgam replied. "But your friend White pointed something important out to me."

"What's that?" Ruby asked. 

"I have better things to do with my time," the Amalgam said with a laugh. "Why waste my time killing Raven when I could be having fun?"

"Huh. Okay, that makes sense," Ruby said. She wiped tears from her face, then felt the bandage. It had half come off. She tugged it off and threw it away. "So, do I continue calling you 'Amalgam' or do you have something else I could call you?"

"I am Ruby and Weiss and Blake and Yang," came the reply. "I am all four of them. I am four souls, and four personalities. There is no other word that could possibly describe what I am."

"Fusion?" Ruby suggested. 

"...just call me Amalgam."

"Okay then," Ruby said. She punched one hand into the air, in what she hoped would be a heroic gesture. "Hold on, Weiss! We're coming to save you!"

She could still fix this yet.


	35. Red

Thankfully, Yellow didn't say too much about Red's arrival. Red wasn't sure how much she could have taken--instead she did her usual, worrying and fretting, commenting that she shouldn't have used the powers, blah blah blah. 

Red smiled. 

"That's the elevator to the bridge," Summer said, looking ahead. "The stairs are to the right?"

"Yeah, and there's another staircase to the left," Velvet confirmed. 

Red walked up to Yellow, staring at the elevator. "It's going to be a looong walk," she commented. 

"Yup," Yellow said. 

"Halt!" a voice cried. A woman in a white dress stepped out from behind a car, pointing a cutlass at them. "Stop right where you--"

Summer ignored her, stomping forward. 

"Hey! I said--" Summer reached up and poked the tip of the sword. The blade was vaporized on the spot. 

The woman looked at the hilt of her once-a-sword, then up at Summer. "Um...you're...majesty?"

Summer curled up one lip in a snarl. The woman backed away quickly. "Wait! Wait just a second--"

"Winter?" White said. All eyes turned to her. White looked around. "My sister, from back home."

"I'm not a demon," Winter said, sounding offended. 

"Zip it," Summer told her. Turning back to White, she said, "So...who is she here?"

"Beats me," White said. "What are you doing, Winter?"

"Your friends put here, guarding the entrance," Winter said. 

"Friends?" Summer asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"Uh...what were their names? Raven, Ruby, Weiss...Pyrrha, Roman, Neo?"

There was a silence. 

"Of all the things to lie to me about," Summer began.

"Hold up a minute," Yellow said. Stepping in between Summer and Winter, she said, "What do you mean, Pyrrha? She died a bit ago."

"Um...she seemed pretty alive to me," Winter said. "Uh...Raven said something about being worried she was dead and all...I think..."

Yellow sniffed. "Actually, she might just be drunk. Ugh." She waved a hand over her face. 

"Hey! I'm not drunk!" Winter paused. "Right now."

Tired of the pointless bickering, Red walked around Winter. 

"Where are you going?" Summer called out. 

"Whatever she has to say, you're daughters are in here somewhere," Red said, walking to the elevator. She pried the door open with one hand, then ripped it off with a firm tug. A bit of her thought that it seemed too easy to destroy military property. "Instead of arguing with Winter about what she did or didn't see, maybe you could actually go look for your kids."

"Um...they went in the back entrance," Winter said. 

Red turned to look at her. "Back entrance?"

"Of course!" Velvet cried, thumping herself in the head. "Through the prison! There's a back door, but no one really talks about it, and it isn't that important..."

"It slipped your mind," Summer said flatly. 

"Yup!"

Summer let loose an aggravated sigh. "Well, is it easier?"

"Yeah, it would be way easier than the staircase," Coco said. 

Winter looked troubled. Bouncing from one foot to the other, she stepped over to Summer and began whispering. Summer listened for a moment. Winter stepped back, looking worried. 

"If you are indeed lying to me about this," Summer said. "You better pray that God has more mercy than I do."

Winter nodded. "I'm not lying."

Summer looked her over. "So...she...she..." Summer looked away. 

_Whatever, _Red thought, climbing up the elevator. She smashed through the top of the elevator, entering the shaft. Black jumped up beside her. "There's a staircase, you know," she called up. 

"I know," Red replied. 

"What if they just drop stuff on you from above?" Black asked. 

"You're being paranoid," Red said. "Just as usual."

Black looked hurt by that. Black's hallucinations caused her a great deal of grief--paranoia only one of a long list. Red flinched. "Sorry, I didn't mean that."

"I know."

"See you at the top," Red said. 

"Wait," Yellow said, stepping up beside Black. "Red...were we gonna do it?"

"The Ritual?" Red asked, surprised. "Yellow, isn't now a bad time?"

"I mean, once we're done with Roman kidnapping and all." She paused, looking back at Winter talking to Summer. "Though that one actually looks a bit more complicated than we first assumed."

"Hey, I agreed with the dude," Red pointed out with a smile. "But yeah. I mean, we're already on the _Ixion _anyway. Why not do the Ritual?"

"What Ritual?" Yang asked. 

Red looked at her and smiled. "Something to finally fix everything." Then, she jumped up and bounced up the sides of the elevator shaft. 

The Imperium Ritual. Salem had written down many things in great detail, but as for the Imperium Ritual? She'd only ever written down what it was in one specific book. 

One that White had gotten two years ago. A short ritual, but with enough power...you could remove magic from the world. All magic. No more silver eyes, no more summoning...no more healing, no more Maiden powers. Nothing. All of it, gone forever. 

As Red rushed up the sides of the elevator shaft, she smiled hard, and thought, _To victory. _


	36. Pyrrha Nikos

The hallways were not as empty as the town, but no one walked through them. Instead, Pyrrha found herself stepping over corpses. 

Lots of corpses. She watched Roman's face slowly change from tension to dread and to grief. Every few minutes, he'd stop and say, "Frederick...I knew him," or, "Cyanna? Good God..."

Pyrrha had seen her mother's dead body. She understood the feeling. 

Roman's cane tapped against the floor. "Almost to the bridge," he said quietly. 

"Thank God," Raven said. "The stench is starting to get to me." She pinched her nose. 

"These were my friends," Roman replied quietly. Raven stopped, looking around. "Sorry. I...forget that everyone else isn't as used to this as I am."

"You've seen your share of bloodshed," Pyrrha told her. 

"I've caused my share of bloodshed," Raven said. 

Pyrrha put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. Looking Raven firmly in the eyes, she said, "I want you to promise hear and now that all of your secrets are out in the open."

"Excuse me?" Raven said. 

"You lied to us all about the Amalgam," Pyrrha told her. "I want to know that there are no more secrets you've got that will come back to bite."

"None," Raven said, "I promise."

Pyrrha looked her in the eye a minute, then nodded. "Okay then." She let go of Raven and continued on. If Raven was lying, she couldn't tell. She still didn't know whether or not to trust her--but, at the least, she knew she could believe her when she said everything she did was for the royals. 

Creaking, around a bend. All weapons were drawn in an instant. 

"Don't shoot!" a dark-skinned man cried, holding up his hands. 

"Fox?" Roman cried. He rushed forward. "And Yatsu!"

Yatsuhashi was actually taller than Roman. That didn't stop him from pulling him down and patting him atop the head and hugging Fox. "Thank God you're not dead! I was worried!"

"Oscar's little pets attacked," Fox said. "The one in armor, and the one in the robe."

"When?" Raven asked. 

"An hour ago," Fox said, "after you two left." He looked at Pyrrha. "Wait, didn't you die?"

"Nope," Pyrrha told him. "Despite what everyone seems to think."

"Where's Oscar?" Roman asked. 

"He went down to his office," Fox said. "We hid in a closet, and...escaped the carnage."

"Good thinking," Roman said. 

"Where's Coco and Velvet?" Yatsuhashi asked. 

A vacant expression came across Roman for a second. Then, "Oh, shit, I left them in the city!"

"Everyone messes up," Raven said, patting Roman's back. "Some more than others." She kissed him on the cheek. Looking back at the corpses, he paused. "His office you say?"

"Yeah."

"In the prison."

"Um...yeah, that's...where it is."

"We left the kids down there!" Roman cried. "Back! Back!"

They took off at a sprint, running down hallways. But a figure stepped in front of them, a figure in a red dress. A man and a woman stepped out as well, one on either side of her. 

"Oscar's intern?" Roman said, confused. 

"I'm not, and never have been, his intern," she snapped. 

"So you're with Oscar, Cinder? You and your..." Roman seemed to search for the most offensive term possible. "...mongrels?"

Cinder flared--actually bursting into flames. She conjured two glass swords, pointing one at Raven. 

"So you found one of them," Raven said quietly. "Which one are you?"

"Fall. And you?"

"Spring."

Pyrrha looked at Roman, who shrugged. 

Raven pulled one of her necklaces out of her shirt--a small wooden raven. "Spring Maiden," she explained. She pulled out her two swords--when looked at up close, they almost looked like giant black feathers. "Go and find another way around. You said she's with Oscar?"

"Yeah."

"Then that means she's responsible for Ruby's eyes," Raven said. A warning danger seared through her tone like fire. Two black wings sprouted from her back, stretching out over the hallway. Pyrrha backed away as lightning coursed through Raven's body. "_Run._" Raven's voice was barely above a whisper. Pyrrha couldn't tell if she was talking to Cinder or herself. 

Pyrrha decided to heed her warning. She and Roman, along with a confused Fox and Yatsuhashi, took off down the opposite direction. 


	37. Cinder Fall

When you grew up having a demon for a babysitter, things got to be fun. The four duplicates had been summoned, and had tried to find a place they could fit in in this strange world. Cinder had been young at that point--an eight year old, especially thin and scrawny. Then, she'd found it--some sort of temple, perhaps to an ancient god. In it she'd found a POWER. 

Then she'd been turned into a raven. Six years later, she'd finally figured out how to change back and went back home. But the duplicates she had known--Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang--all had been murdered, along with her mother. No one had found the murderer. 

Until...

Cinder looked Raven up and down. Someone holding the power of of a Maiden could have taken out four demons--even duplicates, if she was skilled enough. Raven had also been 'abroad' during the time of the murder. 

There was only one question left. 

"Why?" Cinder asked. "Why kill them?"

"I've killed quite a few people," Raven replied. "I wouldn't have remembered whoever you're talking about."

"They never did anything to hurt you," Cinder snapped. "So why kill them?"

"I really don't know who you're talking about," Raven said. "But if I killed them, they probably deserved it." 

Cinder's swords blazed with fire. "Go," she told Emerald and Mercury. "Go get Oscar. I'll need backup."

Until they did, Raven was hers. 

Cinder lunged forward, slashing out with her swords. Raven blocked, the spun one of her swords in an overly complicated maneuver. Cinder raised a sword to block, then hastily ducked as a bolt of lightning channeled through the sword and went over her head. Cinder was forced to step back as Raven attacked. And attacked. And attacked. 

She was relentless. Cinder's previous thoughts of bringing her to justice suddenly seemed childish. She slashed out with both of her swords, fire blazing. Raven blocked, but was still thrown backwards. She slid along the ground, her wings flapping. Cinder unfolded her own wings, which sprouted out of her back, somehow managing not to rip her shirt into shreds. Two massive flaming wings spread over her head, and she lunged forward, slashing down. Raven blocked, but was clearly not prepared for the force with which Cinder attacked. She was thrown backwards, through a wall that was blown from her path. Cinder glared through the hole in the wall before running after Raven. 

She leapt over a wooden crate, smashed, on fire, and full of guns. Flying through the room, she looked around for Raven. 

"Where'd you go?" she muttered. Raven Branwen was not a coward. But she might have thought that Cinder was not worth her time and just stepped around her. 

Wind from behind. Cinder turned around just in time to block Raven's swords. She'd flown in from behind? Yes, that made sense. Raven had never been one to care about chivalry. Cinder attacked, flying backwards and forwards, in and out of range of Raven's attacks. But Raven didn't fly backwards--she only moved forward. Cinder's offense, quickly grated to a stop, then became a defense. She parried a few of Raven's attacks--_Good God, this woman's fast--_and attacked once herself. Raven knocked the sword aside and then kicked Cinder. Cinder was knocked backwards and off balance, and she struggled to keep from falling out of the air. A ten foot fall probably wouldn't be lethal, but it most certainly wouldn't be comfortable. 

Raven hadn't prepared for the recoil of her attack--perhaps she wasn't used to aerial combat? Cinder had looked up reports. No one had ever actually seen her use her magic. She appeared to like to keep it under wraps. Righting herself, she hovered for a second. 

She appeared about to say something, but decided not too. Then she attacked. Not with her swords, she stretched out both hands to the side, then thrust them towards Cinder, blasting a long channel of lightning. Cinder turned into a raven, quickly ducking past the lightning. She flew through the closed room, dodging blasts of lightning. _How is she doing that continuously? _she thought. _While flying! Could she really be _that _tough? _Oscar had said that none of them could take Raven on, one on one. Had he been right? 

Refusing to give up, Cinder turned back into a winged human, throwing jets of fire. Raven flew aside, then lunged Cinder. She attacked fast and brutal, lashing out with her swords, a stab here, a slash there. Cinder blocked and dodged and parried. Then Raven's sword slipped past Cinder's, slashing her shoulder and nearly skewering her wing. Cinder dropped from the air, her wings flapping desperately. Then Raven landed on top of her, kicking her hard in the stomach. Cinder hurtled to the ground, smashing into another crate full of weapons, a machine gun sticking uncomfortably into the small of her back. 

Raven's boots landed on her waist. Sharp pain spread up, but the fight was still going. Cinder, now in a position of severe disadvantage, blocked as Raven slammed both her swords down. Pulling her swords back. she stabbed one directly into Cinder's wing--being pinned down, she was unable to move it aside. 

Crying out in pain, she shot a jet of fire out. Raven ducked her head aside, then kicked Cinder's hand. The sword went flying off, shattering against a wall as Raven stomped on Cinder's stomach. The breath knocked out of her, Cinder gasped for air. Raven plunged her sword into Raven's shoulder--her right one, the same hand that held her remaining sword. Raven attacked again, and Cinder, out of options, blocked with her arm. Blood splattered her face, and pain seared through her arm. Breath coming in gasps, Cinder looked up at Raven. Raven had a look of disdain on her face. "Tenacious, aren't you?" She pulled her sword out of Cinder's wing, then stabbed it through Cinder's stomach. Pulling it out, she stabbed again. And again. 

And again. 

"Why'd...you kill...them?" Cinder wheezed. Covered in blood, with barely functional body, pinned beneath a woman with no mercy. Unless Oscar made last second rescue, she was dead. 

So she had to know. 

"Those four duplicates--Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang--never did anything to you. Why kill them...and my...my..."

Raven had stopped. She looked past her sword, and looked as if she _saw _Cinder for the first time. "Huh. I guess I do remember. Tall, black hair, suit of metal armor. It conducted well."

Fury. Fire flared inside Cinder. "WHY?" she shouted. Her voice echoed around the storage room. 

Raven stood for a long moment. Then, she said, "I don't have to explain myself to you."

Cinder stared at her. Raven lifted her sword, then stabbed it through Cinder's face. 


	38. Oscar Pine and Salem

_Well, now, this is a bother, _Salem's voice echoed in Oscar's mind. He checked his watch, then looked at the massive red rune covering the floor. He stood in the center, in one of three circles. A second for Cinder, and the last one for Pyrrha and Yatsuhashi. He checked the massive arch that lead into the room. 

They still hadn't come in. 

"--with this! Roman's gonna stop you! Raven's gonna stop you! Summer's going to arrive, and _kick your--_"

"We're sorry, were we supposed to be listening?" Oscar asked dryly. "Because we're afraid we weren't."

_Speak for yourself,_ Salem told him. 

_Sarcasm, _he told her back. 

Neo glared at him from her perch. Twenty feet of the ground, tied by her arms to a metal pole that ran from one side of the room to the other. With Weiss Schnee, of course. "I don't know what you're doing with your big chalk drawing, but you--"

"Who says we're using chalk?" Oscar interrupted. Chalk would have been the easy option. Indeed, if any of Salem's books had dictated the use of chalk, he would have just stuck with it. But no, apparently human blood was the better alternative, and apparently it had to be from dozens of different people, especially for a rune as large as the one Oscar stood in. 

"This rune happens to be made out of the inhabitants of Arvinum," Oscar commented. "A massacre that was hard to hide our part in from Roman, by the way. He is no fool." _Says you, _Salem said with a chuckle. _He made a fool of himself. _

_To you, who happens to predate some of the species on this planet, _Oscar reminded her. _But to me, he acted rationally. _He checked his watch, then grimaced. He was supposed to wait for them to finish setting up the rune, but if this stayed out too long things were going to be nasty. He pulled out a small vial and poured it into his hands. 

"She couldn't have just lit a stick on fire, no," Oscar muttered, holding up Ruby's eyeballs. They had taken on a silvery sheen, and the pupils and irises had disappeared. The eyes floated off his hand and into the center of the three circles. 

If Cinder and the others didn't arrive soon, he'd have to do the Ritual by himself. Which could end poorly, considering the rune was built for three different goals. Cupiditatem Ritual was a picky one--more so than any mere summoning ritual. More so than even the ritual that had brought Salem into this world. If it wasn't performed perfectly, it would flicker and fail. A waste of all the magical power he had spent a full year gathering. He'd meant to use Red's eyes for the ritual, as that would have involved not engaging Raven Branwen, but that plan had quickly fallen short. 

Footsteps. He looked up at the room's entrance, saying, "You're la..." He trailed off. Roman Torchwick walked into the room, Pyrrha Nikos at his side. 

"You're still alive," Oscar said, mildly surprised. 

"Not as if I'm going to let myself be beaten by a one-man power duo," Roman growled, unsheathing his sword and gun. 

"Who says only one?" Oscar said with a smile, stepping out of the shadows at the side of the room. The first Oscar smiled and nodded at him. "Yes, Roman. Why limit ourselves to just one?"

He'd summoned his duplicate when he'd summoned Salem. The two regularly swapped back and forth, and no one had yet noticed. This other Oscar, however, had someone called Ozpin in his head. The two Oscars shared a smile, then turned and looked at the flabbergasted Roman. 

"Two of them?" Roman spluttered. 

"Four, if both of them have another soul inside their own," Pyrrha added. 

"Not exactly how it works," Oscar said. The duplicate nodded. "Agreed. It has a...much more nuanced set of rules."

Roman took a step forward. "Now then, let's--_holy shit those are eyeballs!"_

"Yes, those are eyeballs," Oscar said with a sigh. 

"I'd have thought that, considering there's a massive rune made of the blood of dozens of people, the eyeballs would have escaped your notice," the duplicate said dryly. 

"We believe you may have seen these eyes before?" Oscar said with a provocative grin. It had the desired effect. Roman looked hard at the eyes, then fell silent. Oscar could see the fury building up inside him. 

_Oh, he's pissed, _Salem said. 

_As planned, _Oscar replied. 

"That's why you did it," Roman said. "The Banshee. To get her eyes to fuel your magic."

He was half right. Oscar wasn't about to correct him on that, though. He set his violin down on the ground. "Do you need our help?" he asked the duplicate. 

"No, I should be fine," the other Oscar said. 

"Kick his ass, Roman!" Neo called. 

Roman looked up at her, surprised. "You're here? Wait, where's Ruby?"

"She managed to get out before Fuckshit here could get her," Neo said, nodding at Oscar. 

"She uses a different insult each time," Oscar said with a grin. "It's honestly kind of fun."

_I enjoy guessing which one she's going to use next, _Salem laughed. 

"What happened to...ah, fuck it, let's do this," Roman said, firing at Oscar. He aimed for the one with the violin--who, being the one to perform the ritual, couldn't really move without really bad things happening. But his duplicate jumped in front of the bullet, deflecting it with his cane. Somehow. 

And the fight was on. 


	39. Pyrrha Nikos

Oscar lunged fast. This one used a cane, the other played a violin, but watched with tension. Which meant that he was worried for his...associate? And that meant that Roman and Pyrrha had a chance. 

Oscar's cane clanged against Pyrrha's shield, and a gunshot cracked with the ping of metal. Pyrrha shoved the cane aside and slashed with her spear. He brought his cane back in time to block that and her next attack. Now it was his turn to attack, an overhand strike that she raised Arkos to block. Her finger found the trigger, and the gun fired, hitting Oscar in the face. He staggered backwards, his green Aura flickering around him. She'd clearly caught him off guard with that attack. 

Roman stepped around Pyrrha attacking, attacking viciously. His sword met Oscar's cane as he backtracked, cursing foully under his breath. He locked blades with Roman for a moment, and Pyrrha stepped in, attacking herself. Her sword hit the cane, knocking it aside, letting Roman's blade slash across Oscar. Oscar's dark green coat received a nasty gash, but Oscar himself was unhurt. 

Such was the trouble with duplicates. 

Oscar was now in a full retreat, parrying blows from Roman and Pyrrha. Then his cane glowed a bright green and he swept it around at them. Pyrrha jumped backwards, slightly behind Roman as the cane swung through empty air. The very same air was thrown in a gust of wind from Oscar's attack, making Pyrrha glad that she hadn't tried blocking. 

Holding her shield loosely, she grabbed her spear in two hands and fired off several shots. The gun appeared to be a variant of a combat rifle--a gun she knew how to use. But tacked on to the odd spear-sword weapon, it made it difficult to use, and she had no idea how to access the automatic fire of the weapon. 

Oscar blocked the bullets with his cane. A faint green afterimage followed him as he individually knocked the bullets out of the air, letting them clatter against the ground around him. He now stood in a determined stance, cane at his side, pointed out to the side. He looked pissed. 

But he wasn't nearly as fast as Raven. Pyrrha cracked her neck, saying, "Ready to finish this, Roman?"

"Once and for all," Roman replied, pointing his sword at Oscar. 

"I'm not going to let you beat me," Oscar growled. 

"I notice that you don't refer to yourself in the plural," Pyrrha said. 

Oscar stiffened. Then the wall behind him exploded. All eyes focused on the massive hole in the wall, and the glowing white figure striding through it. 

"ROMAN TORCHWICK!" Summer rose bellowed. 

"Ah, fuck," Roman said, backing up a few steps. 

"Where's my sister, you psychotic bastard?" Yang cried. 

"Wait--hold on a second! I can explain!" Pyrrha cried, waving to get everyone's attention. And indeed, it appeared Summer had brought _everyone. _Ren, Nora, Jaune, Yang and Blake, even the demons, White, Yellow, and Black--though Red was nowhere to be seen. 

And enough assault rifles immediately pointed at her to make her say a quick prayer to God under her breath. 

"Alright! I've had just enough of your bullshit!" Blake said, pointing her sword at Pyrrha. "I want my--Weiss?"

"They're on our side!" Weiss cried hastily. "Roman and Pyrrha are with us! They're trying to help! And that's not demon Pyrrha! That's human Pyrrha! She's not dead!"

"I told you this multiple times!" Winter cried, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. 

Summer eyed Roman with a raised eyebrow. 

"We can talk this out later," Pyrrha called out. "For now, get Oscar!"

"Which one?" Jaune asked, his sword drawn. 

"Wha--both of them!"

The Oscar Pyrrha and Roman had been facing off against backed away onto the red rune. "I don't believe this can get any worse," he told the other. 

A massive shape fell through the air, snatching Neo and Weiss off their perches, and landed behind the Oscars. Both looked up at the Amalgam, Ruby on its back, as it held up Weiss and Neo. 

"We're here to save you, Weiss!" Ruby cried, triumphantly pointing a sword into the air.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Oscar said, lowering his cane and stepping backwards. He pointed his cane up at the Amalgam, and then his head exploded with a gunshot. Black smoke leaked into the air as the corpse disintegrated. The Amalgam seemed surprised, its four eyes blinking in succession. "Who did that?" it asked. 

"It seemed like the right time," Red said, standing up from behind the Amalgam. She strode across the room, then looked at the remaining Oscar. "I'm not sure what happened, but Roman seems pissed at this guy."

"Oscar here has ordered the deaths of dozens of people," Roman explained. "Summoning several demons. I'm reasonably certain he's why you four were summoned," he added, nodding to Red. 

Oscar looked at the spot where the other one had died, then looked around the room at all of his enemies. He slowly dropped to his knees, set the violin to the side, and put his hands on his head. 

"Good call," Red growled, raising her sniper rifle and holstering it on her back. 

Two people--kids really--ran into the room through the doorway. Pyrrha recognized them as the kids with the woman in the red dress, and pointed her gun at them. 

"Oscar! Cinder needs backup, she's...fighting..." The girl trailed off, looking around the room. 

"Who are those two?" Summer asked Roman. 

"No effing clue," Roman replied. 

The girl dropped two guns onto the ground, lifted her hands into the air, and sat down against the wall, where she was joined by the boy. 

"That's dealt with," Pyrrha said, pushing a button on Arkos. The spear and shield fit together on her back, rather comfortably. Pyrrha clapped her hands together, grinning. "We win!"

Summer tackled her, sweeping her up into a back-breaking hug. "Thank God you're okay!" she cried. "I thought you'd died, and I...I...oh!"

"I can only handle so many super-tight hugs," Pyrrha squeaked. Summer dropped her, and Pyrrha rubbed her shoulders. 

"What's going on?" Ruby called out, lowering her sword. The Amalgam had set the three of them down, and she was standing with Weiss and Neo. "Mom? Is that you?"

The look on Summer's face was one Pyrrha would never forget. She rushed forward, grabbing Ruby by the shoulders and falling to her knees. "Ruby?" she asked, hesitantly. 

Ruby reached up and touched Summer's face. "How did you even get here?" she asked. "Aren't we, like, a million miles off the ground?"

Summer cracked a smile, but it didn't last long. "Ruby, it's going to take more than a million miles to keep me from saving you."

"Aw," Ruby said with a chuckle. Summer hugged her daughter. "I'm sorry," she said. "I...wasn't there for you..."

"It's fine," Ruby said. 

"Please don't lie, Ruby," Summer whispered. 

"...I'm not fine," Ruby admitted. "But I will be. Everything's...good now. Roman's actually not a bad guy. Oscar was the big bad, and he actually went down pretty quickly. I think. I wasn't actually here for the fight," she admitted. "But it would have been a very heroic rescue had the two of us arrived first." She paused. "Um...five of us?"

"It really doesn't matter," the Amalgam told her. It sat down, cross-legged, shaking the room. "There's four of us in one body. How the hell you're supposed to count that is beyond us."

"Um...is she...them...on our side?" Summer asked. 

"I think?" Ruby said. She made it sound more like a question. 

"Good enough for me," Summer said. 

"What did I miss?" Raven called as she entered the room. She wiped a smear of blood off her cheek. 

"Just the big final battle," Pyrrha said with faint smile. 

"Damn," Raven said. She looked around the room, at Oscar, at Roman, she raised an eyebrow at Weiss and Ruby, and her eyes lingered for a second longer on the two strangers. 

"Was the Cinder woman tough?" Pyrrha asked, walking over to her. 

"Actually? Yes. Comparatively? No." Raven sheathed her swords, and her two wings folded into her back and disappeared. She shook herself, then looked around the room. "So, what's going on?"

"Uh...Summer's having a big mother-daughter talk with Ruby, Roman and I fought the second Oscar that showed up--a duplicate of the first. The Amalgam's a good guy now?"

"Okay, that's what that's about," Raven said. "Good, because it was beginning to freak me out."

"And Red's..." Pyrrha frowned. "What is she doing?"

Red was tracing her fingers along the red path of the rune. The rune pulsed a few times, light flashing. Then it changed, going from one incredibly complicated diagram to another, 

"Red!" Pyrrha called out, walking towards her. "What the hell are you doing?" Pyrrha had had one nightmarish day. Whatever Red was doing, Pyrrha didn't like it. 

Red looked up. "There's a lot of built up magic here," she said flatly. "And there was a certain magical spell of our own we'd planned on doing, so I figured, why not?"

"What spell?" Pyrrha asked suspiciously. She doubted it was anything too bad--but she really wanted to make sure. 

Red stood up, cracking her neck. "One to fix everything. It's called the Imperium Ritual, but I doubt you'd know the name."

"I don't," Pyrrha said, folding her arms. 

"Salem's final piece of work. It was designed to, as she put it, 'counterbalance the evil she'd done'. All the harm magic has put into the world, the Imperium Ritual could undo." 

"How?"

"Magic is the problem," Red answered. "The Imperium Ritual will get rid of all magic in the world. No more magical spells or abilities will be able to be cast or used."

There was a long silence. 

"Hell, no," Raven said. "Just that. Hell no."

"Red, it's a miracle that rebellion and civil war haven't come up before now," Summer said. "If I lose the ability to use the silver eyes, then it won't just be my own country I'll have to worry about--it'll be the surrounding countries as well. That's a full on world war, Red."

"And what about all the things that magic helps?" Weiss argued. "All the healing magic that exists? And Raven's lightning magic, that's saved a lot of people from death."

"Most of what Raven's fought are demons," Red said, "summoned by magic. And magic causes more problems than it solves--you mentioned healing magic? What about the demons that get summoned? Demons like the one that took out Ruby's eyes?"

Summer stood up, leaving one hand on Ruby's shoulder. "At this point, removing magic would cause more problems than it would fix," she said levelly. 

"Ah, ignoring what I said," Red interrupted, leaning backwards, her arms swinging at her hips. "Classic Summer move. Ignore all the bad, and maybe, it'll ignore you, too."

"Ruby, calm down," Yellow said, putting a calming hand on her sister's shoulder. 

"I'm not Ruby!" Red shouted, spinning on Yellow. Yellow backed off. "In case you forgot the past _year of our lives, _I go by Red now! Because I'm not even the real Ruby Rose!"

"Of course you are," Summer said. "You're just Ruby Rose from another world."

Red glared at Summer with fury. "Oh, really? Because, if I am the real Ruby Rose from my world, then what is _she _doing here?" Red pointed at the Amalgam. The Amalgam looked alarmed, its four eyes each looking between Summer and Red. "How are there two of the 'real' Ruby Rose, Summer?" Red spat. "No. I'm nothing but a copy of her. A _duplicate. _Where'd you think that term came from?"

Summer took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to cause offense."

"Now that's a surprise."

"For the love of God! And you say I don't listen to anyone!" Summer pointed at Red. "You will not do this! You will not plunge my world into a war that will devastate the planet just because you're throwing a goddamn tantrum like a spoiled brat being told no!"

There was a long moment of silence. 

"Okay," Yellow said slowly. "Let's all calm down."

Red reached up and took the face-plate off. She looked up at Summer, one eye silver, the other a swirling ball of red fire, trailing red light from that eye like a wing. A silver wing of light came from her other eye. "You...make me so mad, Summer. You know that? You do every thing you can possibly do with those two slimy hands of yours, just to hold on to that tiny shred of power you have. You claim to do it for your country. You claim to do it for your family. You do it for you. You do it because you're afraid that other people might _inconvenience _you." Red scoffed. "I'm going to do this. You can't stop me."

"Red," Yellow said, warning in her voice. "Let's not start a big fight here, kay?"

White stepped up beside Red, followed by Black. 

"Guys," Yellow said. "Really. This isn't our world. This...this is...she said don't. Why not listen to her?"

"Sorry, Yang," Red said. Then she slammed one hand down onto the rune on the ground. "NO!" Summer screamed, rushing forward with a scythe made of light. The rune glowed, brilliant red light flaring through the room. 

A sick, churning feeling spread through Pyrrha. Whatever happened, she felt like this would benefit no one.


	40. Amalgam

Help the kid. It would be easy. It would be kind. No, you're not going to get caught up in a power struggle between a cruel tyrant and a crazy demon. Not that any of the four minds of the Amalgam would have ever guessed that would happen. But it did. 

A red barrier sprouted up at the edge of the rune. Summer bounced straight off and slid backwards across the ground, her scythe disappearing. The Amalgam jumped over and caught her, setting her down gently. 

Without pausing a second, Summer jumped to her feet. "Stop her!" she cried, holding up one hand and firing a silver blast of light. 

The blast dispersed harmlessly off the forcefield. As well as the lightning bolt shot by Raven and the gunshots by most of the people around the room. 

Red almost seemed to smile. 

_She really needs to lie down. _

_Yikes. Is she that crazy?_

_That can't be good. _

_Ah, boy, I guess we're doing this._

The Amalgam sighed, raising its fists. As usual, with this new body, the larger fists mimicked the movements of the smaller fists. Annoying, but workable. That train of thought led to thoughts of Oscar, and then the Amalgam noticed Oscar sitting safely inside the forcefield, smiling broadly, hands at his sides. No--hands on the floor? 

"That little shit is powering their forcefield," the Amalgam realized. "OSCAR!"

Red had been right--the Amalgam wasn't the 'real' Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang. But then again, weren't people just bundles of feelings and memories?

With a cry of berserk rage, Neo rushed forward, stabbing with her umbrella. She bounced off, the two broken pieces of the umbrella flying off in different directions as the Amalgam caught her before she flew too far and set her down. 

Neo held up the handle, looking heartbroken. Since she'd been summoned, she'd been small and scared. And now she'd lost the last little piece of home. The individuals in the Amalgam could think for themselves--but right now they were all equally pissed. She put a comforting hand on Neo's shoulder. Neo looked alarmed--she'd always been particularly jumpy around team RWBY, for some reason--but seemed to calm down. 

"As soon as I break through that field," the Amalgam said, "I'm throwing her off the _Ixion._"

"You'll have to get in line," Raven muttered. She fired off another blast of lighting, then another, growing increasingly frustrated. The Amalgam could understand that--a power that you wasted ten years of your life trying to get and use, now utterly useless in your hands. 

It had to sting. 

The Amalgam walked around the forcefield, observing. Oscar had his hands on the ground--not facing the field. That meant that he was supplying power to the entirety of the thing at once, since he didn't appear to be directing it towards all of their attacks. 

The three demons started their ritual. The Amalgam ignored them, instead focusing on the forcefield. The Weiss in her briefly wondered what would happen to them if all magic disappeared, but she quickly moved beyond that. She reached up and tapped the field. Her finger bounced lightly off. She pressed against it firmly. It resisted firmly. 

_Alright then, _the Amalgam thought. She reached up, putting one pair of hands on the field, but not pushing it. She wasn't repelled. So she used Weiss' Semblance. Not boosting glyphs, or time dilation, but summoning of her own. 

The Schnee family Semblance kicked in, and a massive knight made out of ice rose out of a glyph _inside _the forcefield. 

The Amalgam allowed themselves a smile. But only one--she made a point of frowning with her other two mouths. She then realized that all of her mouths always had the same expression, and had a brief freak out over it. 

Oscar looked up in alarm, blocking the knight's sword with his violin bow. 

Which was when the attacks came. A blast of lightning, a bolt of pure white light, a bomb, and enough bullets to bring down a tank. A series of cracks spread through the field. 

The Amalgam punched the forcefield, and it shattered. It felt disturbingly like taking down someone's Aura. The knight, without Weiss's constant attention on willing it into existence, disappeared. So the Amalgam was first to deck Oscar. Oscar was thrown clear of the rune, hitting a wall and collapsing on the ground with a thud. 

The Amalgam could have done two things next. She could have attacked the duplicates. But instead she struck the rune. She didn't know why she felt like hitting the rune was a priority, but it worked. A bright red flash lit up the room, and the Amalgam covered her eyes. She remembered, this time, to cover all four of them. When she uncovered them, it was to see Red, Black, and White lying at Summer's feet. 

Red was clutching her face. 

"Done," the Amalgam said, rubbing her wrist. That hand was hurting now. A lot. 

"Can we stop the fighting now?" Summer said, holding out a hand. "Pl--"

Raven fired off a lightning bolt, striking Red directly. The demon screamed in pain, crumpling backwards. 

"Raven!" Summer cried. "What are you doing?"

"What I should have done a year ago," Raven growled, pulling out her sword. 

"Wait, Raven! Stop!" Weiss cried. She stepped over, Ruby still holding her hand. 

Raven spun her sword around. 

"Please don't kill them," Ruby said. "They were only trying to help."

"They put all of you in danger," Raven countered. "They ignored the warnings. They...they went straight for it! They could have just plunged the world into chaos!"

"Doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?" Ruby asked. 

"Not if they put you in danger after so blatantly ignoring the warnings," Raven answered. 

"So you're just going to do what you normally do," Emerald shouted. "Murder everyone who gets in your way!"

"What?" Summer asked. "What is she talking about? And who is she?"

"What did you do?" Pyrrha demanded. 

"A question I also want answered," the Amalgam added. Raven had already committed lots of crimes. She probably could have lied her way out of this one, but she didn't. Instead, she told the truth. 

"After I summoned the Amalgam," she said slowly, "I was scared. Very, scared, and hurt. That th--it had hurt me. The very next thing I found was the duplicates of the same people. That scared me more than everything else." She sighed. "I'm sorry for lying to you, Pyrrha. But that last secret..." 

"What did you do?" Pyrrha repeated. 

"I killed them," Raven said. 

"Why?" Summer demanded.

"As I said, I was scared," Raven said. "At the time, it was nothing more than fear." 

There was a long silence. 

"Well, let's forget the past," Summer said. "Let's all move forward, trying to be our best selves. Okay? No more...no more fighting."

Raven bit her lip, considering. But then Red stood up, rubbing her face, groaning. A look of determination settled across Raven's face, and she lunged. The Amalgam tried to step in to stop the attack, but Weiss and Ruby were faster. The two both held the same sword, and stepped in Raven's path, swinging the sword. A look of alarm passed over Raven's face, and she twisted her sword out of the way as she passed them. Then her severed hand fell to the ground. Raven stumbled, clutching the stump of her arm, looking at Ruby and Weiss. She looked betrayed. Weiss and Ruby looked her way. 

"Oh my God," Weiss said, dropping the sword and covering her mouth. "I...I'm sorry."

A bright blue flash, and Raven was gone. A small black raven hovered in the air, missing one leg, then it flew off. 


	41. Wrapping Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. Unlike the other ones, this one takes place from the point of view of multiple characters, so as to not post a bunch of super short chapters at the end.

When Red next had a conscious thought other than about how much pain she was in, it was that her face felt weird. She vaguely heard people talking and shouting, and someone was carrying her. She opened her eyes and looked up at Yellow, who looked down at her. 

It was then that two things occurred to Red: one, that she had both her eyes again; two, everything was blurry. "What's happening?" she asked. 

"Well, the three of you exploded," Yellow said. "And...you have your eyes back?"

"But no Aura," Red mused. She touched her face. "Ack. Why is everything so blurry?"

"If I had to guess, it has something to do with the fact that your eyes are green now," Yellow replied. 

Red raised an eyebrow, then understanding came. "The Amalgam messed with the Rune. The spell intended for the rest of the world collapsed inwards, onto me..." 

No Aura, no silver eyes. Probably no Semblance either. She was, essentially, a human now. "Where are Black and White?" 

"The Amalgam's carrying them," Yellow said. She looked around. "We're heading back to the ship, so we can head down to the city. And, for the rest of them, home."

Red looked up, squinting. She saw Pyrrha, being hugged by a crying Ren and Nora, looking awkward. Ruby and Weiss had taken a seat on the jet, side-by-side, holding hands. Summer stood right beside them, looking like she had no idea what she was doing. Yellow set Red down in a chair. "You'll be okay?" she asked. 

_Not 'are you okay'. 'Will you be' okay. _Red smiled, chuckling. "Yeah, but I think...I think my new eyes are...defective." She rubbed her eyes, blinking. "Yeah, I might need to see someone about this. Where's Roman?"

"Actually, he's staying behind to set the _Ixion _down," Yellow said. "Oscar killed most of the people, sacrificing them for his ritual--which we still don't know what it was about, by the way--and the _Ixion _is fresh out of pilots. He's setting it down and then will come over to the hotel the royal's have been staying at." Yellow sat down next to her. "You missed Summer trying to apologize to him for the whole 'ignoring you and God and everyone else' thing. It was hilarious; I wish I'd had a camera." She laughed. 

The jet had two main rows of seats. Red looked across, at Black and White, whom the Amalgam had set down. They looked back at her. "I guess we failed?" Black said, shrugging. 

"Yeah," Red said. "But...hey, maybe its for the best. Wait, where's Crescent Rose?"

"I got it," Jaune called out, lifting the sniper rifle and tossing it to Red, who caught it out of the air. Red breathed a sigh of relief. Like Neo's umbrella, her gun was all she had left to remind her of her home. "And Oscar?"

"Well, while Raven was busy trying to murder you, he slipped out the back door," Yellow said with an apologetic smile. "As Roman put it, 'Twice the souls, twice the stubbornness'."

Red laughed. "I assume with a few vulgar swears?"

"His language is actually remarkably clean," Yellow said. "I mean, I don't even think he's said the eff word."

"I'm sure he has at least once," Red said. 

"So..." Summer looked up, biting her lip. Red looked at the fuzzy shape in her vision, squinting. "Were you...did you have a place to stay?" Summer asked. "We...have a few extra rooms at the hotel." 

Perhaps her way of apologizing? Red smiled at her. "Sure. And, uh, sorry about..."

"Trying to start World War II?" Summer said with a chuckle. "Yeah, don't sweat it."

"World War II?" Red asked. "As in, a second one?"

"The first one ended a few centuries back," Summer explained. "With my great-great-and-so-on grandmother gaining control over the continent of Anima. After using the powers of God to smite all the heretics, something she later apologized for."

Red chuckled. "Sound familiar? Woman with powers from God, does something bad, then apologizes for it?"

"History doesn't like creativity too much," Summer agreed as the jet began lifting off. Then the entire jet shook as the Amalgam sat down. 

"Sorry," it said, looking around. "I do think this thing wasn't designed for people my size..."

At the very least, its voice didn't echo around anymore. 

**Six months later**

Pyrrha tossed a log into the hearth. The Winter Home did, technically, have air conditioning, but it was hardly in the spirit of the season to use it. Christmas music played from somewhere in the house as Pyrrha pulled out a lighter and lit the log ablaze. 

"So you're going the traditional way of keeping warm," Red said, stepping into the room. She wore a thick red sweater, and what appeared to be a Santa hat. She straightened her glasses--after six months, Pyrrha still hadn't quite gotten used to them. "Kinda low tech, isn't it?"

"Who doesn't like a good crackling fireplace?" Ruby countered. She followed Weiss into the room, holding her love's hand. Pyrrha smiled. "No one," she told Ruby. "C'mon, get yourself a seat. I'll go get a thing of eggnog."

"You're the best," Ruby said, following Weiss into a chair. Pyrrha strode into the kitchen--the Winter Home was quite a bit smaller than the other ones, in addition to being only one story. Pyrrha opened the large fridge's door, looking for the eggnog. Which was about when she heard the door ring. "I'll get it!" she heard Jaune call. Pulling out the cardboard carton, Pyrrha briefly wondered who their visitor could be. _Raven? _she wondered. They hadn't seen Raven--and hadn't heard from her either. But from the reports, she was still active. Constantly moving around, constantly hunting any demon that showed up. 

She bit her lip, pouring four glasses of eggnog, being thankful to Summer for buying the large cartons. Setting the glasses on a tray, she brought them into the sitting room, passing one out to the two royals and the demon. "Merry Christmas," she said. 

"Not that I have the slightest clue why this holiday exists, but it's presents and eggnog," Red said with a laugh. 

"Uh...Pyrrha?" Jaune called out. "It's...Ponytail."

Pyrrha looked up, then strode out of the room to the entry into the house. She looked at her duplicate. Ponytail stood there, looking tired and haggard. She wore more casual civilian clothes now--a modest sweater, long pants, and a fuzzy hat. "What's up?" Pyrrha asked, trying to be casual. She hadn't seen the demon in six months, and when she had seen her last, they'd been trying to murder each other. 

Ponytail folded her arms over her chest, stepping side to side, awkwardly. "I...um...I..." 

Pyrrha nodded encouragingly. "What is it?"

"I want my spear back."

An odd request. Pyrrha raised her eyebrow. 

"Please. It's...all I have left of him."

"Okay," Pyrrha said with a smile. "Come on in. I know I left that thing somewhere." 

Ponytail seemed surprised that her request had been granted. When she got over it, she tackled Pyrrha and hugged her. "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Ah...um..." Pyrrha thought through her next words carefully. "We're not yet at the hugging stage."

"Sorry." Ponytail let her go, rubbing her hair. "I, uh, thanks."

Duplicates, Pyrrha decided, leading the way into the house, were something she was never going to get used too.

Neo, for the first time in a long while, was happy. There were no illegal crimes to commit. No goody-two-shoes Huntsmen in training trying to beat her. Roman had even gotten her a new umbrella sword--which made her even happier, even though it was blue and Roman still refused to let her call him Dad. Which meant she only called him that when he wasn't looking. 

"She seems really happy with that umbrella," Summer said, pulling a tray of gingerbread men out of the oven. 

Roman nodded. "She named it 'Voice'," he told her. "Why she named it, I'll never know."

_When your world is torn down, and one person left standing there for you, _Neo thought at Roman,_ then you'll know to put names to their gifts._

Roman pulled out his phone, tapped a button, then put it up to his ear. Calling Raven again. As usual, no answer came, and Roman was left putting up his phone with a sigh. "Are we ever going to see her again?" he asked. 

Summer shrugged. "Either she comes back or she doesn't."

"There's really no forcing her," Black said. She sat perched on the counter beside the tray of gingerbread men. She'd apparently made great strides with the psychiatrist they'd hired. Which was good--Neo wasn't sure why she was so scared of Black, but it helped to know that the voice telling her to kill everyone around her had been quieted. "I feel like she'll come back when she's ready."

"And if she's never ready?"

"Then she'll never come back," Black answered. 

Roman looked troubled that. Neo leaned in close, to comfort him. She wasn't sure how well it looked. "You could always go talk to Taiyang about it," she suggested. 

"Why?" Roman asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow. 

"Not his first rodeo," Neo said with an impish smile. 

"Ouch," Summer said. "Too soon."

Raven scared Neo. And not just like Black scared her. Raven had, in Neo's world, beaten Neo in a fight. Raven here was even tougher and scarier. But Roman cared about her. And in this world, he'd once told her, "You have a bit of a 'me' problem." To fix said problem, she hoped that Raven's Christmas was good. 

Raven was had a dilemma. On the one hand, she felt the strong urge to drown her bad memories in something strong and alcoholic. On the other, she was not going to become just another drunk sitting and ranting at anyone who got too close. 

That was why, December seventeenth, she was chugging eggnog by the bottle, really wishing it could make her drunk. No, all it did was give her a stomach ache and a headache. In other words, a hangover where you skip being drunk. It was not the optimal solution. It was not even close. She chucked the empty container, and it hit a wall and fell near its trash bin. Because she was right handed, and now only had her left hand. She sighed, leaning back on her bed. What she really wanted for Christmas was to go back to them. But they'd made it perfectly clear that they didn't want her around. Didn't they understand that she'd done it for them? That all of it--the summoning, the fighting, the murder--had been for them?

Now, she had nothing left to do but count her days. She didn't have to prepare for fighting the Amalgam, next time it showed up. No, the Amalgam was living with Summer--rather peacefully, too. And as for Oscar--of course he was still active. Who else would be summoning so many demons? And for no other reason than pure chaos. That was what his kind thrived in--the unpredictable chaos and death of a monster on the rampage. She could have stopped him--if she could have only found him! And Summer...was Summer even trying to look for him? Had she learned anything?

_Knock, knock. _

"Go away," Raven called out. 

The door opened anyway. "If you were going to drown in anything," a dry, somewhat musical voice began, "shouldn't you make it water, and not self pity?"

Raven looked up at the newcomer, then sat straight up. The stranger wore a tank top and baggy black pants, with a cloak hanging off one shoulder and sweeping the ground as she walked. Her short red hair was spiky. And her face was covered with a network of red scars. Two red eyes looked Raven up and down. "My, my. You don't really look anything like the fearless warrior I've heard about," she went on. She stepped on one of the things of eggnog, then stepped back. She bent down and picked up the carton. "Better than beer, I suppose," she said slowly. 

"Who are you and what do you want?" Raven growled. 

"My name is Rosetta," came the answer. "I'd be lying if I said I wished to make your dreams come true, but I can do that, for a bit of a price."

Raven paused. "What price?"

"Just a woman I want _dead,_" Rosetta said with a smile. She tossed the thing of eggnog away. "I've already got one ally, but...I feel like I want two."

Raven narrowed her eyes. 

"I can make it worth your while. I do believe, you want a certain 'Oscar Pine' dead? And you want to make this precious 'Royal Family' safe?" Rosetta smiled. "I can do both. If what I plan on doing succeeds, I'll be able to hunt down and kill Oscar, and make your family safe forever."

Raven stood up, dusting herself off. "Alright then. It's a deal."

_Sometimes, someone gets a second chance. Sometimes, they get a third chance, a fourth chance. But if everyone just kept giving chances, the world might be nicer. But there is also a point where you need to stop this. Some people really do cross the line they can't go back on. Some people really don't want more chances. But the important thing is that everyone gets that vitally important second chance, and perhaps that third chance, as well. Everyone can be nice. All it takes is a bit of patience, a bit of pain, and a lot of work. _

_The unfortunate thing is that some people are unwilling to do that work. _

_\--Sylvia_


End file.
